JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Demonstrated to Mining Weekly at this week’s Electra Mining Africa exhibition in Johannesburg were AI-enabled solutions that are taking mining tyre performance to the next level by lowering downtime by up to 20% and uplifting safety and sustainability.

With AI help, mine sites are optimising fleet use through the early signalling of tyre issues such as hot spots or tread damage, as well as the timely flagging of the likes of haul road spillage, undulations and non-compliant berms.

Showcasing these advances in Johannesburg was Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group, which will soon implement the major advance in Zambia.

“AI generates the information and we take that data and turn it into information that the mine can use,” Kal Tire VP Southern Africa John Martin explained to Mining Weekly at the Canadian company’s comprehensive exhibition stand.

“Our goal is to help customers solve some of their most pressing challenges and make tyre work as safe as possible for technicians. That commitment continues to drive innovation across an ecosystem of offerings, driving operational improvements across tyre performance, fleet availability, safety, environmental impact and more,” added Martin.

Kal Tire’s TireSight is powered by Pitcrew AI; its HaulSight utilises Decoda’s LiDAR and camera sensors on the front and back of trucks that provide instant alerts. The trailers come with solar powered fuel cells, so that they can be deployed anywhere on mine sites, without needing any extra power. Forming the underlying planning platform for the AI capabilities is Kal Tire’s TOMS.

There are 25 TireSight and HaulSight systems in operation across Canada, Australia, Chile and Colombia, with Zambia’s expected to be in place in the next two weeks.

“What makes TOMS distinctive is that it's a platform that we use across all mines that we operate on, and so it has a common language. It allows us to collect an enormous amount of data to understand trends, and now it has AI embedded in it,” Kal Tire communications director Tracy Cobb pointed out.

Among the technologies long associated with tyres have been tyre pressure monitoring systems that tell one the pressure and temperatures inside the tyre chamber.

TireSight generates a report to the mine on outside damage and temperature rising that needs watching. But when a catastrophic failure is just about to happen, the message goes out to stop the truck immediately to avoid major damage.

A single tyre on a large haul truck holds a substantial compressed air volume at a considerably high operating pressure.

“In terms of tyres, a 797 uses a 63-inch tyre. It's filled with 4 000 litres of air, inflated to 8.5 bar. The stored energy in there is the same as two kilograms of TNT. So, it's really a dangerous pressure vessel, and often tyre damage sits underneath in the structure of the tyre, and when we humans are walking around the truck, we don't see that the tyre is broken, and so with this technology, we can find those images and the tyre hot spots can be identified in the tyre,” Kal Tire Mining Tire technical services director Christian Erdelyi reported.

From a safety perspective, autonomous inspection removes people from a hazardous tyre interface during the inflation process, or a tyre burst. “So, providing automated inspection stations removes people from the interface of having to stand right next to the tyre to do the inspection,” Martin noted.

HaulSight reports on the quality of the haul roads, which again affects the performance of the tyre and the overall performance of the fleet.

Regarding the efficacy of AI, Cobb said: “AI is only as good as the people you have analysing it and so we don't just have AI for the sake of having AI. We have a 24/7 condition monitoring team who are reviewing every scan that is being taken.

“They're validating it. They're prioritising it and if they see a hot spot that they think is on the verge of fire, there's a call to the mine site to stand down the truck.”

WHEEL INSPECTIONS

Traditionally, wheel inspections often require rims to be shipped long distances to specialised facilities, adding transportation costs, extending turnaround times and potentially removing serviceable assets from operation.

Kal Tire Mining Tire manager: innovation Kyle Madill spoke to Mining Weekly at the exhibition about Argus, a portable wheel inspection solution, which helps eliminate those inefficiencies by bringing advanced inspection capabilities directly to the customer.

Using electromagnetic non-destructive testing technology, Argus scans critical areas of the wheel for cracks and other defects, helping identify issues before they progress into failures that can lead to downtime, costly repairs or safety concerns.

The latest version features a redesigned universal probe that follows wheel contours more effectively, including weld areas, simplifying inspections while improving technician efficiency.

Already supporting operations in Latin America, Argus will continue to be introduced to additional remote mine sites to help make faster, more informed maintenance decisions.

”The goal of innovation at Kal Tire is to solve real challenges maintenance teams face every day,” says Madill. “With Goliath-25, we’re adding another layer of protection during tyre inflation, and with Argus, we’re giving mines a faster, more practical way to detect wheel cracks before they lead to failures, downtime or safety concerns.

“Goliath is a tyre restraint system, and it's what we believe is a game changer for our technicians. The task of inflating a tire has some really critical risks. If there were a rapid deflation it could cause serious injury or fatality. So we have had always a requirement to restrain the tyre. In other applications, we would use like a piece of equipment, maybe a tyre manipulator or a forklift.

“Now we have the ability to contain that tyre with the Goliath, and we don't need any equipment to do it. The technicians can take it anywhere in the field and deploy it on to that assembly.

“It's installed in minutes by one single technician. It's tested to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard of being able to contain the pressure up to 150% of the inflation, if there was a rapid deflation. It's a really simple, easy solution for a critical task that has a high hazard to our technology,” Madill reported.