Reliability and Risk Assessment of Electric Cable Shovel at Chadormalu Iron Ore Mine in Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, shovels play an important role in production of open pit mines and their failures result in significant production loss and considerable increase in maintenance costs. Therefore, reliability and risk analysis can help to improve production, productivity and reduce production costs. In this study, reliability of electric cable shovel of Chadormalu iron ore mine in Iran was investigated. Failure distribution function of the subsystems whose failure information is available was provided by statistical analysis using EasyFit 5.5, Minitab 18 and the subsystems with low or failure information which was generated by experts using normal distribution function. Criticality of subsystems was determined using Birnbaum and Fussell–Vesely importance measures reliability. Results showed that reliability of cable shovel has reached to zero after 40 hours and subsystems of crowd gearbox, swing gearbox, lubrication and bucket door are the most critical subsystems.