Equipment supplier Excalibur Vehicle Accessories has launched its new rollover protection structure (Rops), which is suitable for opencast mining.

The company, a subsidiary of diversified industrial group Argent Industrial, says that its Rops is ideally suited to the Toyota Raider double-cab, Nissan double-cab, Ford Ranger T6 double-cab and the Isuzu P190 double-cab.

“The new Rops was specifically designed for all double- and single-cab one-ton pick-up vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of less than 3 500 kg,” says Excalibur Vehicle Accessories commer-cial manager Tinus Labuschagne.

The new Rops, which is manufactured from grade 304 stainless steel, and finished with automotive industry original-equipment manufacturer stand-ard textured powder coating, weighs less than 100 kg,

“This is a huge advantage, as this is a light-weight and compact design, which means that there is far less weight influence on the handling and durability of the vehicle. Safety is improved greatly, compared with other Rops in the market,” he claims.

Further, Labuschagne points out that the company also produces the safety bumper for the acticulated dump trucks and haul trucks used on opencast mines, which is manufactured in line with mine specifications according to different designs and is available to fit to vehicles manufactured by Bell, CAT, Terrex, Komatsu and Hitachi.

Testing

Excalibur commissioned commercial contract research and consulting provider University of Pretoria-owned Business Enterprises at the University of Pretoria to conduct a Rops test for the Bureau for International Risk Assessment on the external Rops frame for generic double-cab light pick-up vehicles.

The tests were conducted in line with all the requirements of diversified miner Anglo American in its AA 264073 Issue 0, 2012, and UP’s Sasol Laboratory for Structural Mechanics specifications, in Pretoria. Mechanical engineer Alewyn Grové and project leader Rudi Kroch oversaw the tests on November 19, 2012, which were done in an assembled configuration, with the Rops being mounted on an actual vehicle load bin and chassis.

The load bin was mounted on the test floor of the Sasol laboratory by means of bolting and clamping, while Excalibur Vehicle Accessories mounted the Rops frame onto the load bin, which conformed to the actual installation method in practice.

The position of the energy requirement and deflection limiting volume (DLV) in the assessment phase was determined and compared with the volume taken up by the DLV after the relevant displacements owing to the test loads, according to the Sasol laboratory.

The force levels that were achieved during the testing procedure without the structure penetrating the DLV are lateral load-ing maximum force: 45.13 kN; maximum absorbed energy: 4.45 kJ and DLV not pene-trated; vertical loading maximum force: 58.86 kN and DLV not penetrated; and longi-tudinal loading maximum force: 18.65 kN and DLV not penetrated.