Rolling Resistance in Haul Truck Operations

Abstract

Rolling resistance as a part of total resistance plays a critical role in the productivity, fuel consumption, gas emissions, maintenance and safety of haul truck operations in surface mines. This article aims to identify the most influential parameters on rolling resistance and complete an investigation about the effect of these parameters on the fuel consumption of haul trucks. In this project, a comprehensive literature review has been completed to identify the parameters that are influential on rolling resistance. Through that process, 15 parameters have been identified and an online survey conducted to determine the most influential of these parameters on rolling resistance, based on the knowledge and experience of a number of professionals within the mining and haul road industries. In this survey, 50 industry personnel have been contacted with a 76% response rate. The results of the survey have shown that road maintenance, tyre pressure and truck speed are the most important effective parameters on rolling resistance. As a case study, a computer model based on the nonlinear regression method has been created to find the correlation between fuel consumption and the most influential parameters on rolling resistance in a large coal surface mine in central Queensland, Australia. The results of the case study indicated that by decreasing the maintenance interval, increasing tyre pressure and decreasing truck speed, the fuel consumption of haul trucks can be decreased. It means that there are a lot of energy efficiency opportunities in haulage operation through the controlling some effective parameters on rolling resistance.

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