technology review mine haul roads
TRANSCRIPT
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Technology Review
MINE HAUL ROADS
Jack A Caldwell
August 2006
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Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................. 3 Information Sources ................................................................................................ 4 Impact Evaluation ................................................................................................... 6 Traffic Control.......................................................................................................... 6 Haul Road Design.....................................................................................................7 Health and Safety..................................................................................................... 9 Consultants .............................................................................................................10 Suppliers ................................................................................................................. 11
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INTRODUCTION
This quote from the South African CSIR website best justifies this
State-of-the-Art Review:
Principal, but often neglected components of any mining orforestry operation are the haul roads. These roads are oftendesigned with little expertise, resulting in expensive
maintenance requirements and high vehicle operating costs.Truck haulage costs can amount to between 30 and 50 per centof total surface mining costs and up to 60 per cent of totalforestry operation costs. The savings from appropriate design,construction and maintenance of haulage roads and utilization of the most suitable materials can thus be significant.
A U.S. source gives these statistics
Mine haulage costs at open pit mines may represent 50% of themining cost and sometimes as much as 25% of the total costs,which include processing, marketing, and overheads.
Acknowledgements to Environmental Products & Applications.
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INFORMATION SOURCES
The following are the best manuals I came across on the design,
operation, and use of mine access and haul roads:
• Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection District Mining Manual.
• U.S. Office of Surface Mining Design of Surface Mine Haulage Roads – A Manual
• Guidelines for Mine Haul Road Design
• Haul Road Design Rules of Thumb
• Design Guidelines (Pennsylvania)
• Improved Visibility for Operating Large Haulage Equipment
• Large Tire Users Group
• Guidelines for Traffic Control at Surface Mines
Michigan Mine Safety & Health
Training Program
Michigan Technological University
Traffic Patterns - Left Lane Driving
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There is a Canadian volume that sounds good, but is not available free
on the Internet; rather you have to send away for it and enclose a
check for $250. I will stick to U.S. procedures for that price until
somebody persuades me that it contains more than is available freely
on the web.
While it does not specifically address mine access roads, the California
Highway Design Manual contains considerable useful technical
information for anyone designing, maintaining, or using a mine access
road.
The volume by Conservation International Lightening the Lode,
contains only short sections on mine access roads, but I found the text
so well written, the treatment of the topic so different, and the overall
perspective so focused that I recommend it.
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IMPACT EVALUATION
A fascinating survey of a proposed mine access road and its physical
impacts is study for the Tulsequah Chief Mine Access Road.
Another overview of a long and important mine access road in Alaska
is the update on the True North Project Haul Road.
Attlin to Tulsequah Chief Mine, British Columbia:
Proposed Haul Road. From Skytruth
The perspective of the U.S. EPA on a mine access road is documented
in the Engineering Evaluation for the Midnite Mine Haul Road.
TRAFFIC CONTROL
The Michigan guidelines for mine traffic control include a nice set of
practical points.
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HAUL ROAD DESIGN
A thesis from the University of Alberta examines new and better haul
road designs for these large and expensive trucks. Here is the
abstract from this thesis (slightly edited to improve clarity based on
my reading of the remainder of the thesis):
Large haul trucks are used at surface mines in Canada thusrequiring better haul roads. The mines use empirical designmethods, which may not result in optimum road design. A roaddesign method based on resilient modulus results in better haulroad designs than the CBR-based method. Numerical modelingdone to analyze the effect of material modulus, layer thicknessand tire interaction on strain bulbs in a haul road, showed thatputting the stiffest layer at the top results in least verticalstrain—hence improved road performance and reduced truckwear and tear. Coal mines located adjacent to coal-fired electricpower plants produce fly ash as a waste by-product. Tests of fly
ash, kiln dust and aggregate mixes proved that fly ashsignificantly improves the strength and bearing capacity of aggregates thus enabling use of thinner layers for roadconstruction.
A functional mine haul road needs a reliable wearing course to avoid
damage to the mines tucks. The wrong wearing course material
reduces safety, reduces truck efficiency, and increases road and
vehicle maintenance. A paper from professors at the University of
Pretoria, South Africa, establishes guidelines for selecting materials for
unpaved mine haul roads. Without going into the details, suffice it to
say that the professors document guidelines for selection of wearing
course materials based on the material’s density, dust ratio (a
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geotechnical parameter I have not previously encountered, but it is
intuitively obvious), Atterberg Limits, CBR, and particle size
distribution. Even if you never use the complex system they set up, I
recommend the table of haul road performance characteristics and the
rating of severity of defects and the basis for deciding when to
undertake repair and establishing the nature of such repair.
On the Caterpillar site is a description of the following code that may
be used to improve haul conditions on mine roads:
Road Analysis Control (RAC) is an information product thatallows the customer to monitor haul road conditions and improvelarge mining truck performance, productivity and safety whilelowering repair, maintenance costs and downtime. Integratedwith the Vital Information Management System (VIMS®), RACprovides real time feedback to the operator about haul roadconditions which are detrimental to cycle times and power train,frame, suspension components and tires. Through the VIMS
message center, two levels of RAC eventsalert the operator to places in the haulroad, which require attention, both fromthe standpoint of truck operation andsupport equipment. When used with atelemetry system like Caterpillar'sVIMSwireless, By monitoring this data,mines will be able to identify and attend tohaul road sections affecting cycle timesand component life.
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HEALTH AND SAFETY
At the MSHA site you will find a self guided tour on the safety of mine
access and haul roads. The number of graphic pictures of vehicles and
trucks run over, run down embankments, and tipped up because of
poor mine road design, maintenance, or use, reminds us all of the
criticality of this topic to cost-effective and safe mining.
A visually effective presentation is the Michigan Mine Safety and
Health Program Guidelines for Traffic Control at Surface Mines .
See also the TechnoMine review on mine health and safety.
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CONSULTANTS
Computer codes to help in designing mine haul roads are found at
sites including:
• Creative Engineering
• Mincon
• SEH
•
• Surpac Minex
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SUPPLIERS
Sadly no one can “supply” a mine haul road; it was to be designed and
constructed in situ. And it has to be maintained. The supplier most
likely to be of interest it the one who can help control the dust from an
unpaved road. Here are some such suppliers and information sources:
CBR Plus North America. I particularly liked their brochure, includingthe history of the product development in South Africa and the soil
chemistry lesson that explains why the product works.
Dust Pro. In addition to product descriptions, their website is a fine
source of information about the technology of dust suppression and
the regulations that make it necessary.
Mega Corp has the trucks that do what I am most familiar with,
namely spray vast quantities of wter on the roads. How refreshing
that always way in the hot deserts of my first construction site.
Midwest Industrial Supply, Inc has a well-stocked website with loads of
information on and a wide range of products for conventional and
other dust control methods in mining and other industries. I will go
back to this site. They even have products for bike trails. They get
my vote.
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Soiltac Dust Control provides dust control materials to the US military
in Iraq—interesting side aspect of operations in an undoubtedly dusty
place.
Polo Citrus Australia has the prettiest website with “natural” dust
control product for sale. Not quite what you expect from mining
Australia. Worth taking a look at even if only to see their photo gallery
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Dust-A-Side is a South African-based company specializing in total
dust control management systems for the mining industry. They have
dust binding products and construction and maintenance programs to
help you control your mine’s dust.
Dustkill is a mid-west distributor of 100 percent agriculturally derived
oils the cure, stabilize, control, and provide dust abatement for mine
haul roads.
Road Material Stabilizers (Pty) Ltd. carries that fascinating South
African (Pty) after its name. I once studied the law behind this, but
forget the details. Regardless, they have a full line of soil stabilizers,
binders, dust suppression and erosion control products.
RhinoSnot Soil Stabilizer. Who can resist a product with this name.
They promote its use on mine tailings, landfills, and stockpile caps.
And it is used in Afghanistan by the U.S. Marines. Actually the
company is called Environmental Products & Applications, but that is
ordinary!
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The Martha Mine case history of dust control is interesting as an
example of full-scale mine application and use.
The Foam Book is an odd website containing links to other site and
publications on dust control and other foam technologies. But mine
roads is hardly it focus so go here for general interest only.
The Dust Control Handbook covers dust control from all aspects of
minerals processing industries; it is comprehensive.
Warajay International in Australia supplies products for road and
pavement stabilization and dust suppression.