Real Time Condition Monitoring with Mobile Equipment Monitoring
Prof Robert Hall (Professor - University of Alberta)
Mining equipment maintenance has evolved rapidly in the last few decades starting with reactive breakdown maintenance and progressing to proactive preventative maintenance. Time-based preventative maintenance is not an ideal choice in the hostile mining environment and hence, condition based monitoring was developed that considers equipment usage and health conditions. Operators still depend on what they see, hear and feel to assess equipment performance and gain insight into equipment’s health, but it is often little too late to prevent the deterioration of equipment health if any problem exists. With the advent of real-time condition monitoring programs like Mobile Equipment Monitor (MEM) that uses data generated by existing sensors/systems on the truck potential equipment breakdowns and health degradation can be detected earlier. This paper explores the opportunities achievable through the use of MEM and highlights some successes that have been achieved at a major Canadian mining company.
