Several presentations at the Haulage & Loading 2011 conference, which will take place May 15-18, 2011, in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, will discuss safety issue for surface mines. Jim Spigener, senior vice president, Behavior Science Technology, will present “Zero Industry Culture,” which will offer actionable steps toward zero-injury performance. Developing and driving a culture that supports safety requires very deliberate actions and transformational leadership. Simply adding more safety systems or using more muscle, without acknowledging organizational and business realities, won’t move a mining company toward its goal of safety excellence. He will advise mining professionals on how they can manage safety more effectively.
In “Testing and Implementation of a Fatigue Monitor System for Haul Truck Operators,” Mark Bartlett, manager-mining technology, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, will discuss some of the real-time monitoring and control of fatigue events being implemented at Freeport McMoRan open-pit mines using the Seeing Machines DSS technology. Evaluation and testing of the technology showed it works for most operators, most of the time though it is not a silver bullet to the fatigue problem. Additionally, the system is reactive, meaning it only measures events as they are happening, rather than predicting fatigue levels.
In “Traffic Awareness and Collision Avoidance: Can They Improve Driver Behavior?” Cyrille Sauvain, director of sales, SAFE Mine, will discuss the results of recent research with collision warning systems in open-pit mines, based on typical trial setups before full-scale deployment. The first phase of the trial recorded traffic data without any information available to the operator to establish a baseline for the second phase with display and all system functions enabled. The analysis of phase 1 vs. phase 2 with operators, mine and safety managers shows improved driving behavior. It also highlights potential enhancements in safety.
Dr. Reik Winkel, executive director, indurad, will present “Radar-Based Driver Assistance and Advanced CAS for Haul Trucks and Loading Equipment.” Many proximity detection sensors have experienced problems with false alarms and they only cover a fraction of the scenarios making them unsuitable for collision avoidance systems (CAS). Robust and compact 2-D scanners can provide range and angular information of the environment especially under difficult conditions (dust, fog, snow, etc.). Intelligent data processing framework is now flexible enough to adopt to the present machine states like speed, inclination, visibility, tire traction, GPS position, orientation, acceleration, etc. The indurad system combines this technology with an easy-to-use interface. The system also generates several driver assistance tools such as lane assist, crusher dumping assistance and bank scan bucket positioning.
Haulers operating daily on adverse running surface mining environments are continually subjected to high g loading events measurable at the suspension. These events may be considered directly proportional to the loading action from both the suspended unbalanced body load above and the variable running surface below the tires. Dr. Tim Joseph, associate professor, University of Alberta, has studied the situation for years and will present “Benefits of Achieving a Load Balanced Hauler.” He will debate the chicken and egg scenario where adverse truck motions cause ground deterioration and poor ground profiles cause adverse truck motions is a downward deterioration spiral that dominates in the mining business.
