Per: talita ribeiro de oliveira (Vale s.a), Antonio eustáquio ferreira (Vale S.a), Roberto carlos rodrigues (vale s.a)
Abstract:
Screening screens are basically of 3 types: steel, polyurethane and rubber, with only the first two being used for damp or natural humidity operations. Steel screens are commonly adopted mainly because they have a larger open area and lower cost, but have a short useful life when compared to polyurethane. Thus, to compare the performance of these screens in the treatment of iron ore, two equal screens were used, one with steel screens and the other with polyurethane screens. Despite the smaller open area, both in terms of feed rate, cost, production of metal scrap, weight, useful life and cleaning time, polyurethane screens had superior performance, especially the useful life 6x longer than steel. Thus, considering productivity, polyurethane screens perform greater physical use and physical availability in addition to sustainability, due to less scrap generation, as well as greater safety and ergonomics in the movement of screens for employees.