Transportation of the mined ore in any mining undertaking is one area that gives numerous opportunities for cost savings. Maintaining a dust free haul road is merely one technique by which a mining operation can begin to lessen operating expenses.
One may think of a haul road as only a filthy path that merely serves one objective, and that is to transfer the mined ore from one site to a new. But that filthy road is the artery of the total operation. Devoid of that dusty haul road a mining business would quickly crash. To care for the road is in effect the same as caring for one’s own physical condition.
We appreciate what happens when our arteries stop operating correctly, but what occurs when a haulage road is no longer maintained appropriately.
On a typical haulage road you will have haulage trucks traveling day and night. Various haulage roads have as many as 500 trucks per day. While others can have fewer trucks but the trucks they do control are many times bigger as well as heavier. Again many of the operations are 24 hours all day each day with no occasion for stopping and re-starting.
When you have nonstop traffic on these haul roads you must do something to get rid of the dust. Many of these haulage roads are in excess of 5 miles long and typically 50 feet wide. Each one of these roads may require about one gallon per square yard each day to keep the dust down. If you were to compute these figures you will find that a typical haul road dust control plan will need millions of gallons of water every week. In some locations water is a incredibly valued commodity that should be preserved when feasible not only for the availability but also for the expenditure of acquirement. Think about it, what would your water bill be like if you used over a million gallons each and every week?
Since the Haul road is watered to keep up manageable levels of fugitive dust, the road will start to erode. This erosion will set off pot holes and further imperfections which over time may cause the road to become un-drivable. Not only will this become a terribly rough road, but those circumstances will furthermore cause premature failure to the haulage trucks.
Still, the price of maintaining haulage trucks increases noticeably when they have to function in a dusty location. There are a lot of parts on a truck that stop working faster when they are surrounded by dust. The engine will consume dust from the haul road which will unavoidably end up in the engine oil, consequently causing a premature breakdown of the truck and thousands of dollars in repairs.
Maintaining a haulage truck is not a simple task. You can envision having to replace a tire that is 10 feet tall. The year on year cost to run these behemoths is greater than most American families make in five years. If you can lower that expense you will be saving the corporation enormous amounts of cash that might be directed at something more beneficial.
Alleviating these costs is quite easy. One only needs to utilize a modernized road dust control program that not only controls the dust yet will also add a elevated level of erosion control. The more successful programs may actually change the old dusty dirt road into a unyielding stabilized driving surface comparable to many asphalt roads. This in turn will eradicate the need for water as a dust control agent and will deliver a extremely level dust free driving surface that lowers the expense of operating the million dollar trucks.
Adding all these savings together will effortlessly help a mining operation reduce their working costs to the point where the dust control program has paid for itself inside a year’s time and the resources from such can subsequently be added to the bottom line.
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