Performance Evaluation of Surface Mining Equipment with Particular Reference to Shovel-Dumper Mining

Abstract

Surface mining is the most well-known mining around the world, and open pit mining accounts for more than 60% of all surface yield. Haulage costs represent as much as 60% of the aggregate working expense for these type of mines, so it is desirable to keep up an effective haulage framework. Equipment availability and estimation of utilization very precisely which is very important since mine manager wants to utilize their equipment as effectively as possible to get an early return of their investment as well as reducing total production cost. In present situation to achieve high production and productivity of HEMMs in opencast mines, it is desired to have high % availability and % utilization of equipment besides ensure overall equipment effectiveness as per CMPDI norms/global bench marks. OEE shows that how an equipment is utilized with its maximum effectiveness. It uses parameters like availability, performance and utilization for the estimation of equipment effectiveness. One method for effectively use of equipment in haul cycle is queuing theory. Queuing theory was developed to model systems that provide service for randomly arising demands and predict the behaviour of such systems. A queuing system is one in which customers arrive for service, wait for service if it is not immediately available, and move on to the next server or exit the system once they have been serviced. Most mining haul routes consist of four main components: loading, loaded hauling, dumping, and unloaded hauling to return to the loader. These components can be modelled together as servers in one cyclic queuing network, or independently as individual service channels. Data from a large open pit mine are analysed and applied to a multichannel queuing model representative of the loading process of the haul cycle. The outputs of the model are compared against the actual dumper data to evaluate the validity of the queuing model developed.