World-leading South African specialist drag-line bucket manufacturer Van Reenen Steel has  developed an innovative design for a dipper, which is a rope shovel bucket controlled by steel cables, not hydraulics, and which is used in opencast mining operations.

The new product is designated the VR dipper.  In terms of manufacturing, the VR dipper, like the VR dragline bucket, is fabricated from steel and not cast. The VR dragline bucket, which entered the market in 1994, was the first such piece of equipment that was fabricated, not cast. Using fabrication reduces weight – cast sections are thicker than the steel sections – and so increases the mass of material that can be excavated, while retaining the same strength as the cast products.
“Our research and development (R&D) budget is about R10-million annually and is probably the most sophisticated in this kind of product category in the world,” company MD John van Reenen was quoted in News This Week in the first week of July
  “We can do finite element modelling, force measurements, soil flow calculations, and so on – all these affect the operational efficiency of a bucket. We’ve used our high-tech engineering to maximise the size of the dipper and ensure that it fills more efficiently than the designs that are currently on the market,” he explains. “The only way we could have done this is through the very sophisticated design capabilities we have.” The company’s R&D capabilities mean that all prototyping can be done, and tested, in virtual reality.
Thus, the first example actually made is effectively to production standards, and it was delivered to Foskor recently. “Once it has worked for a couple of months, and any glitches are worked out, we have a lot of mines that are showing interest in it,” Van Reenen  states.
“From the standpoint of our company, up to now, because we have produced dragline buckets, we have had to concentrate on the coal-mining sector. Now, with dippers as well, we will be able to service all opencast mining operations, so considerably broadening our customer base.”
The VR dipper differs from existing dippers both in its design and in how it is manufactured. Unlike traditional dippers, the new model has a trapezoidal shape, which increases its capacity without increasing its size. It also has a rounded floor, in place of the usual square floor – this reduces the drag experienced by the dipper when it is excavating material.
Dippers, unlike dragline buckets, are each fitted with a door at the rear – the material they have excavated is released by opening this door; in conventional dippers, these doors have a central latching mechanism, which puts great stress on the ends of the door.