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Mechanised, trackless development improves safety, production rates

22nd March 2013

By: Chantelle Kotze

  

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Mining equipment and service provider Sandvik Mining’s Trans4mine division, which focuses specifically on increasing Sandvik client’s mining efficiencies using a facilitative approach, reports that it is undertaking a mine design project using only trackless equipment to develop a rail- bound haulage system for a South Africa-based deep-level platinum mine.

South Africa typically uses conventional mine development methods to access an orebody, usually with hand-held drilling machines and track-bound hauling, which requires a significant amount of labour and time.

As a trackless mining machinery and service supplier, Sandvik Mining has investi-gated ways to overcome the challenge of slow and labour-intensive conventional mine development, which resulted in the creation of a feasible method to use a fully mechanised fleet of trackless mine machines to deliver fit-for-purpose conventional haulage drives.


“The fleet is less labour-intensive and has a safer and higher development rate,” says Trans4mine project manager Danielle Nardini.

She adds that, in addition to the focus on safety at mining houses and of contractors, mines are looking for ways to remove workers from the mine face and other dangerous working areas, using mechanised mining machines instead.

Trans4mine carried out a conceptual study in 2008, which was based on a deep-level gold mine application using a fleet of trackless equipment to develop flat dipping twin-ends to be used for conventional production haulage purposes.

“Twin-end development is forecast to become more prevalent in the South African deep-level mining industry, owing to ventila-tion and logistics and other requirements, as the country is moving towards extending and deepening its gold and platinum mining operations,” says Nardini.

A significant part of the conceptual study was focused on mitigating constraints intro-duced by the application of mechanised equip- ment. Issues such as ventilation requirements and constraints; trackless/track-bound inter- face; machine maintenance schedules and infrastructure; machine parking areas; oper-ator and artisan skills; blast interval flexibility; and enabling seamless construction activities were a focus throughout the conceptual study.

Sandvik Mining achieved this by studying multiple scenarios based on a typical case study, which focused on aspects of safety, mine design, mine-activity cycling, worker and machine requirements, service instal-lations and trackless/track-bound interfaces.

In the process, Trans4mine has completed a dynamic mine simulation, which reviewed the primary activities on the development end, such as face cleaning, scaling and support, shotcreting, drilling and charge-up.


“It also established fleet requirements in line with the tested mine layout and used these requirements to apply an improved shift setup, maintenance programme and machine options. “The simulation not only determined how many metres the drilling system would advance, but also the approximate cost for each metre developed,” explains Nardini.

She adds that mechanisation is perceived to be costly and inflexible. “However, with Trans4mine’s proposed mine development system, these concerns have been sufficiently dealt with through the fleet selection, mine layout and shift set-up. “This forced machine selection is not only to be based on performance and fit criteria, but also on fit, multifunctionality and operational flexibility to ensure a fit-for-purpose tunnel is delivered on schedule,” she notes.

The challenge is, therefore, to successfully implement such changes at an operating mine that employs an established working method and, as a result, isresistant to change from tried and tested development methods.

Trans4mine operations manager Andre Smit points out that the resistance to change does not stem from the operational personnel working on the development face, but instead from supervisory up to management levels.

“This could be as a result of a heightened awareness in training operators and artisans to accommodate the change; however, supervisors are left in the dark as to how these new systems are to be managed. “We have developed a supervisory training programme to be rolled out as part of system integration to assist in this regard,” Smit says.

Meanwhile, Sandvik Mining was approached by one of its clients in October last year to apply this method at its deep-level platinum mine shaft sinking project, says Nardini.

Sandvik Mining, through its Trans4mine division, took the client’s current mine layout and worked with the client and its consultants to improve it from a mine design, machine and productivity perspective.

Sandvik Mining proposed that the client use two Sandvik DD321-40 twin-boom drill rigs with 6 ft × 10 ft split feeds, as they enable the drill rig to undertake face drilling and support.

“Ideally, one rig should be dedicated to roof bolting and the other to face drilling, even though, essentially, the rig can perform both functions,” says Nardini.

In addition, the use of two 7 t load-haul-dump trucks were specified.


The new mechanised primary mining fleet will increase labour productivity by between 25% and 42%, compared with a conventional development crew using hand-held drills, manual loading operations and conventional rock bolt installations.

“Labour productivity increases which result from mechanised mine development are far reaching. “Not only can mines achieve milestone depths faster with a more efficient workforce, but the workforce can also operate in a safer and better working environment and apply higher skill levels, which aid in addressing labour inequality in the workforce.

“Mechanisation in deep-level mines, I expect, will become much more prevalent, owing to its safety, labour and productivity benefits. However, as an original-equipment manufacturer, we are working to reduce the impact of diesel-powered machines on ventilation requirements,” she concludes.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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