Materials Engineering has a key role in the mining industry
Who are we?
One Eighty Materials Testing is Africa’s most widely scoped ISO 17025:2017 and accredited materials testing laboratory and we are Bureau Veritas Marine and Offshore and ILAC accredited. We are a member of SASSDA (the South African Stainless Steel Development Association).
One Eighty has twenty years of industry metallurgy, materials testing and materials engineering experience. We are known for our commercial turnaround times, innovative and comprehensive result reporting.
One Eighty’s value proposition or offering in the mining industry
Mining is the process of extracting minerals (like coal and diamonds) and metals (like gold, silver, platinum, tin, and iron) out of the ground in the form of an ore, thereafter, processing the ore into more refined product stages for international export and or production or local sales.
The Mining Industry employs many scientists and engineers in these processes, such as: geologists, mechanical engineers, process engineers and metallurgical/materials engineers, etc.
OEMT’s value proposition to industry is to apply our extensive metallurgical and materials expertise, coupled with high- level technology to solve, the mining industry’s mission critical issues in these areas (real life problems).
Real life problems in the mining sector could include:
- Root Caused Failure Investigations, the process of investigating the frequent or repeated failure of key process equipment which results in production disruption due to increased frequency of stoppages and higher maintenance costs. An investigation of the root cause for failure specifically to understand the origin of the failure and in implement measures to mitigate these failures from recurring and thus preventing the associated losses through downtime and concomitant production losses.
- In addition, we specialize in the areas where parts, fittings and/or components have less than optimal performance or service life cycles – we are able to assist with material selection and design criteria optimization, making these items perform optimally during in-service applications. This will significantly mitigate associated risks of down time and maintenance schedule issues while enhancing performance levels and potentially boost output
OEMT’s consulting engineering expertise adds value to our clients, by way of the following:
- Consulting during the process of applying many of the resources of mining to specific research and development. Some of this can involve applications of products and to achieve this, engineers often require inputs from materials engineers and/or scientists to help them select the most appropriate materials for any application in the industry.
- Advising on materials selection analysis, for any large capital equipment and construction builds, both of which are critical in the mining industry.
- Conducting routine metallurgical or materials testing
- Qualifying welds and/or welders according to appropriate codes and relevant procedure records (WPQR/PQR).