Mining Equipment Maintenance

Fundamental Concepts

Old Underground Coal Mines

Modern Longwall Mine

The effect of Mechanisation on Productivity

25000

20000

Tonnes/Man-Year Produced in Queensland Coal Mines

15000

10000

5000

19 16 19 20 19 25 19 30 19 35 19 40 19 45 19 50 19 52 19 55 19 60 19 69 19 72 19 75 19 80 19 85 19 88 19 95 20 03

Maintenance Costs
30-50% of the operating costs Annual bill is about $10 billion Equally significant is the cost of lost production when the machine is down Every 1% improvement in equipment availability or productivity improves the company profits by up to 3.5%

Objective Function for Maximising Company profits

The Annual Production for a given investment is a suitable objective function

Total Annual Production

Is this total annual production ? Tonnes/Hour x Total Hours More realistic prediction is Tonnes/Hour x (TotalHours - Downtime) Probably the following is more illuminating Tonnes/Hour x (TotalHours -Scheduled Downtime - Breakdown maintenance)

Total Hours of Possible Production

Subtract Planned Maintenance

Subtract Breakdowns
This is the time available for production. Obviously, you want to maximise this time. That is why the ratio of this time to the total time is a very important KPI.

Availability
TH - PM - BM A= TH
TH PM BM Total Hours Planned Maintenance Breakdown Maintenance

Availability
TH - PM - BM Operating Time ! A= TH Total Time
Is also expressed in terms of MTBF and MTTR as

MTBF A= MTBF+MTTR

Availability
TH - PM - BM Operating Time ! A= TH Total Time
Is also expressed in terms of MTBF and MTTR as

MTBF A= MTBF+MTTR
This is the textbook definition of AVAILABILITY

Availability
Operating Time = N x MTBF Downtime = N x MTTR Total Time = N x (MTBF+MTTR)

Operating Time N x MTBF A= ! Total Time N x (MTBF+MTTR)

Maximise the Return to the Company

The aim for the company is to maximise the return from its productive assets. Let us keep it simple and express this as maximising the production through the year. To achieve this, (a) The machine availability must be high (b) The machine must be producing at a high rate when it is operating The solution is a compromise between the two. We will see this in an example.

Optimum Bucket Size

The recommended suspended load for your dragline is 150 tonnes. A competitor put a larger bucket on a similar unit and they are running it at a suspended load of 170 tonnes. Your Manager wants you to install an even bigger bucket, taking your suspended load up to 210 tonnes. You know that the safe static load for this dragline is 250 tonnes. -Does a larger bucket necessarily mean higher production? -Why not increase it to 250 tonnes if this is the safe load? -How would you determine the optimum bucket size?

Question
Present Production Po = 9000 t/h.

A=

TH - PM - BM TH

Total Mine Operating Time in a Year = 8640h 12-hour planned maintenance shift every month. Breakdown maintenance downtime is expected to vary with the production rate as

BM ! 336 " R

P is the production rate with the bigger bucket. Find R that maximises the annual production.

P where R ! Po

Solution

Lo Br st p ea ro k d du ow ct n m i on ain du te e t na o nc e

Optimum Point

Dependence on MTBF

Maintenance
Maintenance must be considered in the context of asset utilisation Mining is an asset-rich industry Optimum utilisation of these assets is the only way a company will stay competitive This is a task for both production and maintenance engineers.

Some Basic Concepts

Failure
Loss of ability of an item to perform its required function

Failure
Broken teeth on shearer downdrive gear

Failure
Cost associated with this failure: Lost production when the machine was down Replacement gear Maintenance labour

Failure Rate, MTBF, MTTR

MTTR MTBF MTTR
Re pa ir

MTBF
Re pa ir

Re pa ir

Failure

100

200

Hours

Failure Rate, MTBF, MTTR

MTTR MTBF MTTR
Re pa ir

MTBF
Re pa ir

Re pa ir

100

200

Hours

MTBF = Mean Time Between Failure (100 h) Failure Rate = Number of failures per unit time (0.01 h-1) MTTR = Mean Time To Repair (20 h)

Historical Records
Failures occur randomly. The repair time is also not constant. How do we find MTBF and MTTR?

If we treat failure as a random event, then we can use the well-established tools of probability and statistics to model the uptime, downtime and availability for our equipment.

Random Failure?
All nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance, direction thou canst not see All discord, harmony not understood

Alexander Pope, Essay on Man

Poisson Process
Poisson distribution is commonly used in forecasting to represent the number of occurrences of a specific event in a given continuous interval. Ships arriving at a dock on a given day Traffic accidents on the SE freeway in a month Mad cow disease breakouts in the world in one year Typos per page in a long report typed by Hal Gurgenci Cable shovel failures in one day of operation

Poisson Distribution
p ( x) ! e
& %t

# %t $
x!

This is the probability distribution of the Poisson random variable X representing the number of outcomes occurring in a given time interval t. The parameter % is the average number of outcomes per unit time.

Reliability
Assume failure events follow a Poisson distribution. What is the probability of having NO FAILURES in a given time interval t? This can be found by substituting x=0 in the Poisson distribution function:

p (0) !

& %t

# %t $
0!

!e

& %t

This is referred to as the survival probability or the reliability

Reliability
R (t ) ! e
& %t

Reliability is the probability that a product will operate throughout a specified period without failure
when maintained in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions; and when not subjected to the environmental or operational stresses beyond limits stipulated by the manufacturer

The value of e
Two centuries ago, a Polish Statistician, Ladislaus Bortkiewicz, investigated the Prussian army fatalities caused by horse kicks. According to army reports, the rate was about one fatality every 1.64 years. Ladislaus collected the reports for one year. These were 200 reports and 109 recorded no deaths at all. Can you estimate the value of e using the above data?

Example
A major piece of equipment fails twice a day on average. Consider its reliability over a period of month. What is the probability of failure at any time during that month?

Reliability
R ! e &2t

Zoom In
R ! e &2t

Failure Probability
If the reliability, R(t), is the probability to survive through time t, then the probability of failing through that period is 1 R(t) or

F (t ) ! 1 & R (t ) ! 1 & e
Let us plot this

& %t

Failure Probability
This chart gives the probability of the failure from 0 to time t. In other words, it is the Cumulative Distribution Function for failures. How would we find the probability density function or p.d.f. This is sometimes useful. We differentiate the cumulative distribution function.

Failure Distribution Function

Cumulative Distribution Function

F (t ) ! 1 & R (t ) ! 1 & e

& %t

The time-derivative of the c.d.f. gives the Probability Distribution Function or p.d.f.

dF & %t ! %e f (t ) ! dt
This form of p.d.f. is called the Exponential Distribution. It represents the case when the hazard rate or failure rate, %, is constant over time.

Failure p.d.f.
The probability of failure through a unit time interval is given by
p!(
t '1 t

f (t )dt

Let us zoom into the p.d.f.

The probability of failure through a unit time interval is given by the area under the curve

p!(

t '1

1 1 f (t ) dt ) f (t ' ) "1 ) f (t ' ) ) f (t ) 2 2

Hazard Rate
The hazard rate is the conditional probability of failure in a small time interval (t, t+dt). It is conditional on there being no failure until t:
h(t ) ! f (t ) R (t )

For exponential failure distribution, the hazard rate is constant:

f (t ) % e & %t ! & %t ! % h(t ) ! R(t ) e

Constant Hazard Rate

The exponential distribution corresponds to a constant failure rate a.k.a. constant hazard rate

Is % always constant ?
f (t ) ! % e
Failure p.d.f.
& %t

The constant % is the failure rate (%= 1/MTBF) So far, we treated % as constant

Reliability function

R (t ) ! e

& %t

This is called the exponential distribution Is this always true? Let us first give an example

Uniformly Increasing Rate

Assume the failure rate is increasing by the formula 0.1t where t is measured in days It starts from zero and at the end of the month, the hazard rate is 3 failures per day. How do we generate the reliability function for this component?

Reliability with varying m=0.1 hazard rate

In a sample of N, dN will fail in a time interval dt

dN ! & Nmtdt

t dN ! & mtdt ln N ! & m ' ln C 2 N

N ! Ce

& mt 2 / 2

! Noe

& mt 2 / 2

Where N is the value of N at t=0

Then the reliability function is

N & mt 2 / 2 !e No

This corresponds to a Weibull distribution

Weibull Reliability

R!e
R * + Shape factor Scale factor

,t&. / 0+ 1

The probability of surviving through time t

Weibull Distribution Curves

c.d.f.

F (t ) ! 1 & R(t ) ! 1 & e

dF * f (t ) ! ! *t dt + e

,t&. / 0+ 1
*

p.d.f.

,t&. / * &1 0 + 1

Hazard Rate

f (t ) * * &1 h(t ) ! ! *t R (t ) +

Weibull curves with different hazard functions

R!e
,t&. / 0+ 1
*

* * &1 h(t ) ! * t +

Bathtub Curve
Failure Rate, %

Infant Mortality

Useful Working Life

Falling Apart

Optimum Point to Replace

Life in operation, hours

Actual Failure Patterns

4% 2% 5% 7% 82%
(68% of this with infant mortality)

These curves are the failure patterns observed on aircraft components in a study completed in 1978 by Nowlan and Heap. This shows that only 4% of the components go through a bathtub curve.

RELIABILITY OF SYSTEMS
Series Systems Parallel Systems (Redundancy)

Series Systems
A series system is a chain of components. When one of these parts fails, the entire system fails.

Series Systems

R ! RA RB RC

Parallel Systems
The failure for a parallel system means the failure of each individual component. The system failure probability is then the product of individual failure probabilities (1 R). A Most mining machinery systems are series systems. In other words, the failure of one component fails the entire system. The redundancy in mining can be provided by having multiple systems, eg spare trucks or shovels.

R ! 1 & (1 & RA )(1 & RB )(1 & RC )

Managing Reliability
Optimum utilisation of its capital investment in equipment is essential for company profits Equipment reliability plays a major role in this Therefore, managing reliability is a core business for a mining company This is a task for both production and maintenance engineers. In the rest of this presentation, we will talk about the maintenance function.

Maintenance Function
Preventive Maintenance
Prevent failures by performing a set of maintenance tasks at periodic intervals
Service Inspection Replacement

Corrective Maintenance
Repair after a failure to bring the machine back to an operating state

Which one delivers higher overall system availability?

Corrective Maintenance
We assume that corrective maintenance brings the system to as new state. Then it has no effect on system reliability Its impact on system availability is measure by the Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)

Mean Time To Repair

Fault Identification
What caused the failure? What needs to be repaired?

Set-up time
Find and bring the right person to the job Actual repair

Logistic delays
Waiting for the spare part

Restart time
Time spent to bring the system back to normal operation after the fault is repaired

How to minimise MTTR

Identify the failed components quickly. This is achieved by experienced operators, on-line fault detection tools For frequent failures have the repair crew with the right skills on standby Ditto for the frequently failing spare parts Design the equipment and the operating procedure to minimise re-starting time

PM Trade-Offs
The cost of failure
MTTR The cost of the repair and the replacement

The cash cost of the planned maintenance action (salaries, consumables, etc) The opportunity cost (lost production)

Preventive Maintenance Issues

Service
Effect on System Reliability

Inspection
P-F time (between potential and actual system failure)

Replacement
Failure distribution curves Effect on System Reliability

Would inspections help?

The time when we can recognise Potential Failure

P-F Interval

Failure Time

Scheduled inspections help when

Potential failure condition is clearly defined The P-F interval is consistent It is practical to inspect at intervals less than the P-F interval The P-F interval is long enough to implement corrective maintenance action

Scheduled replacements help when

The component breakdown has costly consequences (eg chain of failures, distance from the workshop, etc) The dominant failure mode is age-related with the hazard rate consistently increasing above an acceptable value at around the set replacement period

Weibull curves with different hazard functions

R!e
,t&. / 0+ 1
*

* * &1 h(t ) ! * t +

Periodic replacements - 1
* ! 0.5

Decreasing Hazard Rate Scheduled replacement increases failure probability

Periodic replacements - 2
* !1

Constant Hazard Rate Scheduled replacement has no effect on failure probability

Periodic replacements - 3
* !2

Increasing Hazard Rate Scheduled replacement decreases failure probability

Reliability Research
A significant part of the academic and research community has been continuing to develop increasingly complex mathematical models of the engineering systems and the expected modes of failure under various loading assumptions. While the intellectual rigour in these studies and the amount of effort that go into them cannot be ignored, the applications to real manufacturing and mining processes have been limited primarily for the lack of data needed to support these models

Industry Data
Analysis and Representation Tools

job_no

Site Maintenance Records

DaJob ojob (s job_title faci date_raised date_act_start date_act_end elapsed_ cosjob_reco trigger_reading s jo instructions R 432 R 432 R 432 R 432 1 2 3 4 1 2 8 1 1 2 3 4 1 5 6 1 7 8 1 1 1 2 3 4 3 1 1 1 3 1 Hoist Motors - George Gilbert & Co. -ED Petersen Report (Shutdown Hoist Motors - George Gilbert & Co. -ED Petersen Report (Shutdown Hoist Motors - George Gilbert & Co. -ED Petersen Report (Shutdown Hoist Motors - George Gilbert & Co. -ED Petersen Report (Shutdown E LIMIT SWITCH UPGRADE FOR DRE23 E LIMIT SWITCH UPGRADE FOR DRE23 E LIMIT SWITCH UPGRADE FOR DRE23 E LIMIT SWITCH UPGRADE FOR DRE23 REPLACE / OVERHAUL #1&#2 HOIST BRAKE CYLINDERS REPLACE / OVERHAUL #1&#2 HOIST BRAKE CYLINDERS AM MAINTENANCE SERVICE NO. 5 CHANGE HOIST BRAKE SOLINOID AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT ADJ # 2 HOIST BRAKE AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT CHANGE QUICK RELEASE VALVE ON # 3 HOIST BRAKE AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT REPAIR HOIST BRAKE CHANGE CYLINDER ON # 2 HOIST BRAKE CYLINDER CHECK/ADJUST HOIST BRAKES. CHECK/ADJUST HOIST BRAKES. CHECK/ADJUST HOIST BRAKES. CHECK/ADJUST HOIST BRAKES. FIT TWO NEW RAIL CHOCKS CHECK ADJUSTMENT OF No 3 HOIST BRAKE REFITTED No 4 HOIST SHOE PINS FIT 2 NUTS TO #4 HOIST BRAKE SPRINGS AM HOIST BRAKE SHOES CHANGEOUT #4 CHECK #4 HOIST BRAKE DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR 11/04/96 11/04/96 11/04/96 11/04/96 6/05/96 19:50 6/05/96 19:50 6/05/96 19:50 6/05/96 19:50 30/06/96 1:15 30/06/96 1:15 29/07/96 14:03 8/08/96 16:56 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 19:28 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 21:59 21/10/96 16:11 21/10/96 16:11 5/11/96 5:29 13/11/96 16:14 4/12/96 21:37 4/12/96 21:37 4/12/96 21:37 4/12/96 21:37 30/12/96 16:23 27/12/96 6:35 27/01/97 20:09 5/02/97 20:41 19/03/97 19:41 17/03/97 4 55 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 18/03/96 28/06/96 13:00 28/06/96 13:00 30/07/96 12:30 8/08/96 15:20 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 15:30 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21:00 21/10/96 21/10/96 5/11/96 4:00 13/11/96 4/12/96 17:10 4/12/96 17:10 4/12/96 17:10 4/12/96 17:10 27/12/96 26/12/96 23:15 27/01/97 10:30 4/02/97 19/03/97 17/03/97 1 45 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 22/04/96 29/06/96 1:00 29/06/96 1:00 30/07/96 22:00 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 16:30 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 21/10/96 5/11/96 5:15 13/11/96 840 ## MD 840 ## MD 840 ## MD 840 ## MD 12 ## RP 12 ## RP 9.5 ## SM DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR DR 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 1 ## RP 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 3 ## RC 1.25 ## RP 2 ## RC DR DR DR DR DR DR 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 86,387.00 87,006.00 87,006.00 87,601.00 87,860.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,086.00 89,350.00 89,490.00 89,888.00 89,888.00 89,888.00 89,888.00 90,123.00 90,123.00 90,867.00 90,988.00 91,693.00 91 693 00 # CHANGE OUT THE "CATS WHISKER" LI # CHANGE OUT THE "CATS WHISKER" LI # CHANGE OUT THE "CATS WHISKER" LI # CHANGE OUT THE "CATS WHISKER" LI # # # # # # # 21/10/96 16:11:36 CHANGE #2 HOIST B # 21/10/96 16:11:36 CHANGE #2 HOIST B # # # # # # # # # # # # 3 4 4 4 NEED 2 EA 1" UNC NUTS 4 4 8/08/96 16:40 1.33333 ## RC

HOIST BRAKES
R29 R29 R29 R29 S0000055 S0000055 S0000055 S0000055 Z0025077 Z0025077 Z0026785 Z0027463 Z0031974 Z0031974 Z0031974 Z0031974 Z0032221 Z0031974 Z0031974 Z0032254 Z0031974 Z0031974 Z0033251 Z0032240 Z0035454 Z0035454 Z0035454 Z0035454 Z0033882 Z0037064 Z0039305 Z0039805 Z0043323 Z0043264

21/10/96 21:40 0.66667 ## RP

4/12/96 18:50 1.66667 ## AD 4/12/96 18:50 1.66667 ## AD 4/12/96 18:50 1.66667 ## AD 4/12/96 18:50 1.66667 ## AD 27/12/96 27/12/96 0:00 27/01/97 11:30 4/02/97 19/03/97 17/03/97 2 45 3 ## RP 0.75 ## AD 1 ## RP 0.5 ## RP 8 ## RC 1 ## AD

It is usually necessary to process 100000+ lines from multiple sources of sometimes questionable accuracy

Pareto Analysis
Pareto Principle : Significant few and Insignificant many In any application, a large part of the failures are due to a small number of causes A Pareto plot helps to identify the most significant causes The benefit is incurred only by attending the significant issues

Pareto Chart
Pareto Analysis for Longwall Face Equipment Failures

Shearer Drive Shaft

Scatter Plot Diagrams

A scatter plot is a logarithmic plot of MTTR against the number of failures N. Since the total downtime associated with each failure is NxMTTR, constant downtime curves appear as lines on logarithmic axes. Downtime MTTR ! 2 log MTTR ! C & log N N

Longwall Scatter Plot

Lines of Constant Downtime

Reliability Analysis
Pareto Analysis and Scatter Plots are good tools to identify the reliability sinks in the equipment The next step is to calculate the failure probability distribution curves for all critical components. The MTTR statistics may also be required if MTTR is not reasonably constant for each item This step requires high quality data

Features of High Quality Data

Large enough set to have at least 4-5 failure events for each target failure mode Cover a sufficiently long time period to eliminate local effects Uniform operating conditions over this period Accuracy free of collectors bias

Failure History Example

Suppose that we have the failure log for a component as 180, 216, 930, 990, 1300 and 1850 hours. Estimate the MTBF assuming an exponential probability distributions.

Failure Data (example)

Failure times 180h 216h 930h 990h 1300h 1850h 714 310 60 310 550 550 36 36 714 60

36 ' 714 ' 60 ' 310 ' 550 MTBF ! ! 334 5

Curve Fitting
The failure log was 180, 216, 930, 990, 1300 and 1850 hours. The TBF array , TBF = {36, 714, 60, 310, 550}.
i TBF Fi 1 36 20% 2 60 40% 3 310 60% 4 550 80% 5 714 100%

This is cumulative probability distribution data. We can then compare it against exponential or Weibull distributions. For example, use the following form to try an exponential distribution:

3 1 4 & %t ! 5 & ! % t F t e ln 6 1 ( ) 7 & F t 1 ( ) 8 9

Estimate the Failure Distribution

TBF, h 36 60 310 550 714 Rough Median Estimate Estimate 20% 10% 40% 30% 60% 50% 80% 70% 100% 90%

Exponential Fit t
F (t ) ! 1 & e
& %t

! 1& e

&

334

Longwall Equipment
Failure Probability Distribution Functions for some Critical Items

AFC Blockage/Overload (2002 only)

3 1 4 ln 6 7 81 & F (t ) 9

Exponential

AFC Blockage/Overload (2002 only)

Weibull

AFC Chain Failures

3 1 4 ln 6 7 81 & F (t ) 9

Exponential

AFC Chain Failures

Weibull

BSL Chain Failures

3 1 4 ln 6 7 81 & F (t ) 9

Exponential

BSL Chain Failures

Weibull

Shearer Cable Failures

3 1 4 ln 6 7 81 & F (t ) 9

Exponential

Shearer Cable Failures

Weibull

What is to be done?
Increase overall availability
Minimise the time spent on PM Decrease number of breakdowns
More effective PM Condition monitoring with long enough P-F time Engineering changes
Design changes Changes to the operating procedure

Decrease MTTR

Do all this while maximising the profit Learn lessons for next equipment purchase

The Reliability Function?

Failed =0 Failed =2 Failed=4 Failed =6

t=0 Failed=8

t=1 Failed=10

t=2 Failed =12

t=3 Failed=14

t=4

t=5

t=6

t=7

Is this best represented by a Weibull or an exponential distrubution?