One might think of a haul road as only a dusty path that just serves one end, and that is to redistribute the mined ore from one location to a new. But that filthy road is the artery of the entire operation. Devoid of that dusty haul road a mining company would almost immediately pass on. To care for the road is essentially the same as taking care of one's individual physical condition.
We recognize what happens when our arteries stop working properly, but what happens when a haulage road is not maintained as it should be.
On a standard haulage road you will have haul trucks traveling day and night. Some haul roads have as many as 500 trucks per day. While others could have fewer trucks but the trucks they do control are many times bigger as well as heavier. Once more many of the operations are 24 hours all day each day with no time for stopping and starting.
While you have constant traffic on these haul roads you have got to do something to eradicate the dust. Several of these haul roads are greater than 5 miles long and on average 50 feet wide. Every one of these roads may need about one gallon per square yard every day to keep the dust abated. If you were to calculate these numbers you will find that a typical haul road dust control program will require millions of gallons of water each week. In some locations water is a extremely valued commodity that ought to be preserved when possible not only for the availability yet also for the expenditure of attainment. What would your water statement be like if you consumed more than a million gallons every week?
Since the Haulage road is watered to keep controllable levels of fugitive dust, the road may start to erode. This erosion will bring about pot holes and new imperfections which over time will cause the road to turn out to be un-drivable. Not only will this become a awfully rough road, but those conditions will as well cause early failure to the haulage trucks.
Additionally, the expense of maintaining haulage trucks increases noticeably when they must function in a dusty location. There are a lot of parts on a truck that break down quicker when they are surrounded by dust. The engine will ingest dust from the haul road which will inevitably end up in the engine oil, therefore causing a untimely failure of the truck and thousands of dollars in repairs.
Maintaining a haul truck is not a simple duty. You might envision having to replace a tire that is 10 feet tall. The annual expense to run these behemoths is more than most American families take home in five years. If you can lower that expense you will be saving the company vast amounts of capital that possibly will be directed at something more beneficial.
Alleviating these expenses is very straightforward. One simply needs to make use of a efficient road dust control plan that not only controls the dust but will in addition add a elevated level of erosion control. The more successful programs will actually transform the old dusty dirt road into a unyielding stabilized driving surface similar to many asphalt roads. This in turn will abolish the need for water as a dust control agent and will deliver a extremely smooth dust free driving surface that lowers the expense of operating the million dollar trucks.
Tallying all these savings at once will without difficulty help a mining operation reduce their operating expenses to the point where the dust control program has paid for itself inside a year's time and the cash from such can after that be added to the bottom line.
Author Resource:
Keven Davis designs products for horse barns as well as dust Suppression for more information please visit our sites.