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A selection of
Automated Port Laboratories
completed by
Rio Tinto - Cape Lambert
Largest robotic iron ore port laboratory in the world
4 robots operating on two 20m tracks
Automated sample dividing, rapid drying, natural or dry lump sieving, dry fines sieving, moisture determination,
splitting, archiving, weighing, sample preparation, automated XRF and four point TGA analysis
The entire process from the sample stations to final analysis is fully automated
FMG – Port Laboratory 2
2 robot cells in a figure 8 layout – 1 for each sample station
Redundancy is assured by this configuration
Samples automatically taken during ship loading are transported to the laboratory by conveyor or IMP’s monorail
sample transport system
Each cell carries out particle size and moisture content analysis. An aliquot from each sub lot is dried, crushed, and
pulverised for analysis
Kumba Resources
Saldanha (South Africa)
Worlds first sampling and robotic facility to straddle the ship loading conveyors
2 robotic cells and each serves a single sample station but the novel design allows samples to be passed from one cell to
the other as required
The system splits the samples in order to build composites for each sub lot
Crushing, milling, splitting, sizing, TGA and XRF analysis using fused beads is all fully automated
Roy Hill – Port Laboratory
1 Large robotic arm on a linear track
Up to four 500kg composite samples can be accumulated for distribution to the client or additional testing
The laboratory has been designed such that a mirror of the facility can be produced in the future lining up the two
facilities together via the rotating magazine
All analytical and process data is stored and managed by the IMP ControlTrack LIMS
FMG – Port Laboratory 1
This robotic laboratory automatically receives up to 36kg representative samples taken during ship loading
Composite samples of up to 500kg can be produced as part of the process
Results obtained from the laboratory are used to certify the cargo
BHP – Nelson Point
IMP provided 2 fully automated robotic sample weighing systems and 2 fully automated fusion systems
These systems were specifically designed to ensure the Nelson Point system has no single point of failure
This laboratory will never be in the situation where analytical samples cannot be prepared for analysis
