When mining penetrates increasingly deeper in open pit mines, the mines take some kind of funnel shape. The deeper the funnel is, the greater the expense for transport gets. In order to accelerate and cheapen transport while maintaining the flexibility offered by truck transport, several types of Trucklift systems have been employed.
These systems are generally similar in structure and operating principle and consist of a slope hoisting plant, platforms, tracks and loading stations. Friction winders or drum winders are used as a hoisting machine and the system can be equipped with either single or double tracks.
When a truck is driven onto and off the platform vertically to the transport direction at the loading station, the platform moves on the rails by the weight of the truck although the winder comes to a halt. Then the truck changing might fail because there may be a difference in the height between the platform and the loading station. So platform arrestors that work when the platform reaches are provided at loading stations, ensuring that the platform is held in the position when the load changes by truck changing.
In addition, when the truck is driven in parallel with the transport direction, the platform also moves on the rails and there appears the varying clearance between the platform and the edge of the loading station. Truck changing may be hindered by this clearance. However, the moving direction of the truck and the platform are the same, so we can avoid the effect of the movement of platforms during truck changing without the help of arrestors by a reasonable design of the structure of loading stations and platforms. For this reason, it is necessary to make a deep study of the moving process of the platform during truck changing.
The moving process of the platform can be simulated with ADAMS and MATLAB/Simulink.
Especially, the simulation of the truck changing process in the Trucklift slope hoisting system where trucks stand parallel to the transport direction on the platform and the analysis of the movement of the platform and the force of rope can provide us with important data for the design of a platform, a loading station and an arrestor.
According to the simulation results, in the Trucklift slope hoisting system with a drum winder, normal truck changing can be realized by making a reasonable design of the platform and the loading station after determining the moving displacement of the platform,
In the Trucklift slope hoisting system with a friction winder, the need to arrange arresters at loading stations must be examined to avoid slipping of ropes in the drum groove due to the movement of the platform during truck changing. If arresters have to be provided at loading stations, the force acting on the platform obtained from the simulation can be used as reference data for the design of arresters.
You can find more information about this in the paper “Simulation for Motion of Platform During Truck Changing in Trucklift Slope Hoisting System in Open Pit Mines Using ADAMS and Matlab/Simulink” by Han Tok Hyong, an institute head at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, presented to the SCI Journal “Arch. Min. Sci.”.
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