Maintenance and reliability analysis of a fleet of load-haul-dump vehicles in an underground hard rock mine

Abstract

Equipment failures and unscheduled maintenance contribute significantly to losses in production and unnecessary capital investments for new machinery. This study investigates the mechanical breakdowns and accompanying repair hours of 13 Load-Haul-Dump (LHD) vehicles, also called scoop trams, from January 2006 to May 2007 at a typical underground hard rock mine in the Sudbury area at Ontario, Canada. The investigation was initiated to evaluate the maintenance characteristics of the machines and provide a statistical analysis of the causes for equipment failures and breakdowns. Graphical methods in conjunction with analytical and statistical methods have been applied.

Keywords:

• maintenance analysis
• reliability
• mobile mining equipment