Searching for reserves to increase productivity of excavator-automobile complexes using computer simulation

Abstract

An analysis of the performance indicators of the main high-performance excavators used at leading coal mines and iron ore mining and processing plants in Russia showed that the actual average monthly productivity of excavators achieved at mining enterprises is lower than the calculated technical one by 30% or more. To increase it, it is necessary to minimize negatively influencing factors and optimize the operation of the excavator-automobile complexes. The possibility of this is confirmed by the information available in the scientific and technical literature on record productivity indicators established at mining and processing plants and open-pit mines during full-scale experiments. The choice of excavator-automobile complexes is a relevant and important task at the design stage of new enterprises, or justification of the optimal parameters of the loading and hauling equipment in conditions when the existing quarries are going deeper or expanding and the productivity of mining and processing plants is increasing, as well as for comparing various technological options for the development of deposits. One way to solve this issue may be computer simulation of the functioning of both the individual elements (excavators, dump trucks, excavatorautomobile complexes, etc.) and the quarry transport system as a whole. The Institute of Mining of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has developed the In-Pit Transport System software suite, aimed, among other things, at solving these problems.