An innovative approach for controlling operational parameters in open pit mining to reduce costs and environmental impacts.

• Autor(a) principal: Rodovalho, Edmo da Cunha
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/3/3134/tde-18012017-151352/
• topic: Alternative equipments; Consumo de diesel; Diesel consumption; Eficiência energética; Energy efficiency; Impactos ambientais; Pneus; Seleção de equipamentos; Simulations; Tyre wear

The main current challenges of the mining industry include aspects such leveraging the mine productivity, controlling costs and reducing environmental impacts. In most surface mining operations, overburden removal requires haulage over short distances. A comparison of different haulage options for short distances with respect to energy efficiency in open-pit mining is a key aspect for decision making, but only a limited number of recent research efforts have considered energy efficiency as a control variable in mining projects. Loading and haulage have an energy source that is highly dependent on fossil fuels. In addition, the equipment involved in these operations use tyres as an important input. There are many studies relating the fuel consumption and tyre wear to several performance indicators, but a methodology that identifies and prioritizes higher-impact variables under each specific operating condition is not available. This research proposes new methods using alternative equipment simulations for fuel consumption and tyre wear management. Such methods include multiple regression analysis, stochastic simulation and specialized software routines in order to identify and control operational performance variables related to diesel consumption, tyre wear and selection of new alternatives equipments. Considering alternative scenarios of equipment models, the results of the proposed method include a 14% reduction in specific fuel consumption and a 16% increase in productivity. Regarding the fuel management method, the reduction of diesel consumption reached 10%. For the tyre wear management method, the results indicated a potential to save up to 8.9 t of tyre rubber in only one quarter.