HMI symbols for mining & bulk solids handling
Mining and bulk-solids plants run on long conveyor lines, heavy crushing equipment and dust-management systems. This page walks the train from primary crusher to tailings — jaw crushers, ball mills, vibrating screens, slide gates, screw & apron conveyors, cyclones, scrubbers — says what each symbol needs to show, and where to get it: symbols published by other engineers (CC BY 4.0), the free Symbol Builder for the ones missing, and the generic icon library for alarm badges, instrument bubbles and lines. Calm gray background, color only for state and alarms (ISA-101).
Process train
1 · Primary & secondary crushing
Jaw and cone crushers reduce ROM (run-of-mine) to a feed size suitable for the mill. Surge bins absorb fluctuations between mining and processing rates.
- Jaw crushers — side-view jaw with the motor block; show motor current or power (the crusher choke indicator operators actually watch) and the 9-state encoding
- Cone / gyratory crushers — cone outline, same readouts plus CSS (closed-side setting) if it is adjustable from the control room
- Ball / SAG mills — horizontal drum with trunnions; mill power, bearing temperature and feed rate next to it; lubrication system state as a badge
- Surge bins and process-water tanks — bin with level; high/low level alarms as badges, not a color fill
Symbols: search "crusher" · search "mill" · community process equipment · community tanks · draw your own in the Symbol Builder
2 · Conveying
Long conveyor systems are the circulatory system of any mining plant. Belt, screw, apron and bucket are the four main types — pick by material density, abrasiveness and lift angle.
- Belt conveyors — two pulleys and a belt, direction arrow, motor state; belt speed and belt-scale tonnage next to it, and badges for belt drift, rip detection and pull-cord
- Screw conveyors — screw inside a trough; direction arrow
- Apron conveyors (heavy duty) — plated belt look distinguishes them from rubber belts on a screen full of conveyors
- Bucket elevators (vertical lift) — vertical casing with head and boot; boot-level / plugged-chute badge is the one that saves you a call-out at night
Symbols: community conveyors · search "belt" · Symbol Builder
3 · Diverters & gates
Slide gates split conveyor flow between bins. Knife gates open/close on slurry lines. Both are critical for plant flexibility.
- Slide gates (rectangular duct) — gate plate position open / closed / intermediate plus actuator type; on a flop-gate diverter show which leg is active, not just "open"
- Knife gates manual / pneumatic / electric — open / closed / travelling; a manual gate without feedback should look different from a motorised one so nobody expects it to move from the screen
Symbols: community gates · Symbol Builder
4 · Classification & separation
Vibrating screens, hydrocyclones, dense-media separators. Recovers the value mineral and rejects waste.
- Vibrating screens — inclined deck with the vibrator motor(s); running state, plus a blinded-screen or broken-panel badge where you have the detection
- Hydrocyclones / cyclone clusters — cone with overflow and underflow; feed pressure is the number worth showing; a cluster is one symbol with "n of N" active
- 3-phase and dense-media separators — vessel with three outlets; medium density as the readout
- Decanter centrifuges (concentrate / tailings dewatering) — horizontal bowl, two outlets; bowl speed, differential and torque
Symbols: search "cyclone" · community process equipment · Symbol Builder
5 · Slurry handling & thickening
Heavy-duty pumps for tailings and concentrate. Reagent dosing for flocculation in thickeners.
- Centrifugal slurry pumps — pump block with gland-seal water state and discharge pressure; slurry pumps fail on seal water first
- Progressive cavity pumps (thick slurry, flocculant) — dry-run protection badge; same pump block family
- Vacuum pumps for filter underflow — pump block with vacuum readout
- Thickeners — large circular tank with rake; rake torque, bed level and underflow density next to it; rake-lift state as a badge
- Belt-press / filter-press for cake dewatering — side view, belt speed or press cycle step
Symbols: community pumps · search "slurry" · search "thickener" · Symbol Builder
6 · Dust collection & environmental
Bag filters and scrubbers keep particulate emissions within permit. Critical for plant continuity (regulatory shutdowns are expensive).
- Bag / cartridge filters — filter housing with hopper; differential pressure, pulse-jet cleaning state, and a broken-bag badge where a particulate monitor exists
- Packed-bed scrubbers — vertical vessel with recirculation pump and fan; recirculation flow and liquor pH
- Cyclone separators (pre-collection) — cone with rotary valve underneath; rotary valve state is what jams
- Stack emissions — opacity / particulate value with its permit limit as a P1 or P2 alarm badge, visible on the overview
Symbols: search "filter" · community process equipment · Symbol Builder
7 · Drives & motor control
Heavy 3-phase motors with VFD on crushers and mills. Reversible motors for cleared-jam restart.
- 3-phase motor — the plain motor block; the 9-state INT encoding (Stopped, Starting, Running, No feedback, Manual, Disabled, Alarm P1, Alarm P2, Fault) covers every MCC feeder on site
- VFD-driven motor — motor block plus speed %; for large mill drives add current or power, not just speed
- Reversible motor (jam recovery) — FWD/REV inside the block so direction is readable at a glance
- Soft-starter motors — same block as direct-on-line; "starting" state is longer, so the blinking-green state earns its keep here
Symbols: community motors · 9 motor states encoding · Symbol Builder
Mining-specific instrumentation
Meter bodies are equipment symbols and come from the community or the Builder; the ISA-5.1 bubbles, tags and connection lines around them, and the alarm badges, are generic and live in the icon library.
Belt scales
Tonnage measurement on conveyor lines
CommunitySlurry density & particle size
Coriolis or nuclear density gauges, online laser/ultrasonic PSA for grinding control
Icon libraryBubbles, tags & lines
Field / DCS / PLC bubbles, connection lines for pipe, electrical, pneumatic, fieldbus
Icon libraryAlarm/ESD badges
Critical for crusher/mill protection systems
Why ISA-101 matters in mining
Mining control rooms are notorious for screen overload — operators monitor 5-10 km of conveyors plus crushers, mills and tailings simultaneously. Non-standard color schemes turn screens into a wall of alarms, and operators learn to ignore them.
ISA-101's discipline — gray background, color reserved for action — works exceptionally well at this scale. Combine it with the alarm priority badges (P1 critical → P4 informational) and you can run a 200-equipment plant from a single screen without information overload.
Recommended approach for greenfield mining projects
If you are standing up the HMI for a new plant, fix the symbol set before anyone draws a screen. A workable sequence:
- One symbol per equipment kind — conveyor, crusher, mill, gate, slurry pump, cyclone, bag filter, motor. Pick it from the community library or draw it in the Symbol Builder. Publish what you draw: your contractors and the next site can pull the same file instead of redrawing it.
- One state encoding — the 0-8 INT word per equipment, agreed with the PLC team before the first function block is written.
- Alarm and state badges from the icon library — P1-P4, ESD trip, comm fail, forced, maintenance — so every screen uses the same badge set.
- A screen template — overview, area, equipment detail; same grid, same fonts, same symbol sizes on every display.
Done in that order, a 200-equipment plant is a few dozen distinct symbols plus the badge set, and the HMI work becomes binding, not drawing.
Getting the symbols for a mining plant
Nothing to buy per industry: the equipment symbols come from other engineers or from you, and the generic iconography is in the icon library.
Explore published symbols
Conveyors, crushers, mills, gates, slurry pumps, cyclones shared under CC BY 4.0. Download PNG/SVG, credit the author.
Symbol BuilderDraw the missing ones
Cyclone cluster, thickener, bucket elevator — whatever isn't there yet. Free, in the browser. Publish it and it costs you nothing to download.
Icon libraryAlarms, bubbles, lines
Alarm badges, state badges, instrument bubbles, connection lines, arrows and indicators.
Downloads: Free account 5 a month · Starter 50 a month · Studio unlimited. Your own published symbols download free.
Stuck on a specific symbol or screen?
Ask in the forum — how to draw a cyclone cluster that reads at overview scale, how to show belt drift and pull-cord on one conveyor symbol, how other sites lay out a crushing circuit. Questions with a screenshot get better answers.
Ask the community → Vendor import guides →Other industries
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Keep going
- Explore community symbols — browse by category: conveyors, gates, pumps, process, motors, instrumentation
- Symbol Builder — draw and export PNG/SVG, publish under CC BY 4.0
- Generic icon library — alarm and state badges, instrument bubbles, connection lines, HMI navigation icons
- Community forum — questions about HMI design, standards and vendor tooling