Improving Mine Haul Road Roughness to Reduce Haul Truck Fuel Consumption

摘要

Mining operations which utilise Haul Trucks to move product or overburden have to also build and maintain a network of roads which the Haul Truck can operate on. As the development of the mine progress typically the road network changes and the maintenance of a mining road can influence the productivity of the mine and specifically the Haul Truck fuel consumption on the mine. The current class of Ultra class Haul Trucks can have a Gross mass from 450t to 590t with 60lt to 90lt engines developing 1,830kW to 2,800kW. By managing the roughness of the mining road network the rolling resistance of the Haul Trucks can be controlled/managed within a defined band and hence the mine can control part of the Haul Truck fuel consumption. Conversely constantly maintaining mine roads affects the productivity of the mine. Typically the decision to conduct maintenance work on a Haul Road is made subjectively, based on the feel of how rough the roads are getting. A system to objectively collect data from vehicles operating on the mine, process and display data on road roughness to mine staff will be detailed. The system enables objective decision to be made with respect to road maintenance and hence Haul Truck fuel consumption.