Project Overview

Core trays are used for the storage, transport and presentation of drilled rock core, as used by mining and exploration companies worldwide. Exploration Companies drill to extract core samples, which are analysed to indicate the value of the lands from which it came.
CoreSafe focuses on maintaining the integrity of the core samples during storage and transport, and addresses the health and safety issues with maneuvering large quantities of solid rock.

Already in the few short months since its commercial release, CoreSafe is quickly becoming the category name for core sample trays.

Project Commissioner

Prospectors Supplies Pty Ltd

Project Creator

CMD Strategy | Design | Innovation

Project Brief

Develop a market leading system for holding, storing and transporting core samples. The system should offer significant benefit over existing products in the market and be manufactured locally. Key considerations of the design should be to optimise the safe handling of core samples and provide the maximum protection for the core samples themselves.

Project Need

Ergonomics and Safety
The focus of the design has always been safety and ergonomics. Significant development ensures the handles have minimum pressure on the hands, even when two operators might be manouvering up to 60kg of solid rock. The CoreSafe trays are significantly lighter than existing metal trays while providing equal or greater strength and rigidity.

Handling
Working closely with end customers, a key focus of the CoreSafe Trays has been to optimise the units for easy handling - from the storage yard to the examination benches.
Observation of the core analysis process revealed the tacit needs of the operators. The trays slide, spin, stack and store with surprising ease, increasing the operator’s efficiency and reducing fatigue.

Core Protection
To accurately analyse core samples, geologists must understand how it was positioned within the ground. Existing trays do not secure samples from movement during transport, so the core’s orientation can be lost. CoreSafe’s rib system reduces rotation of the core during transit saving geologists considerable time orientating core.

The Universal lid is used to protect against the elements, but also between trays, preventing cross contamination between samples. The lid can be locked - core sample holds a huge amount of economic value as they embody the data that determines the value of the earth from which it was extracted and is very costly to drill in the first place.

Design Challenge

The greatest design challenge was discovering the known and tacit requirements of end customers. Only through extensive research in watching and participating in handling of the core through its life were Prospectors and CMD able to garner the knowledge required to optimise the tray’s design.

Creating a plastic tray which provides the same level as rigidity as a metal tray, while holding up to 60kg of rock, was no easy feat. Extensive virtual and real life testing on samples was critical to optimise the strength of the tray, and ensure that operators could handle the tray with ease. Low volume sample runs were produced for use on site with geologists to test.

The extensive testing with mining customers has allowed us to design (what we think is), the best core tray on the market.

Sustainability

Metal trays rust quickly when stored outside in the elements. This oxidisation of metal trays is accelerated when the core samples contain corrosive sulphides. Samples are often contaminated by the rust – destroying the geological value of the core. The polypropylene trays exhibit no reaction to the sulphides and the chemicals they are exposed to, and certainly do not rust.

Metal trays are easily damaged beyond reuse during transport or if they are dropped, however the polymer CoreSafe trays have been engineered to resist deformation and failure under extreme loads – reducing waste through discarded trays.

The core trays also promote local business sustainability, with production taking place in Brisbane.