FUELS & OILS
for fuel management and are also an effective way
to reduce theft and wastage.”
Robofuelling
SCOTT Automation’s ROBOFUEL™ is an
automation and control solution, combined with
the latest vision and sensing technologies
providing refuelling of mine trucks accurately,
safely and autonomously. The ROBOFUEL process
uses a robotic arm to refuel mining equipment to
increase productive hours and efficiency of trucks,
with a projected business case that demonstrates
a short payback period and deployment models
that can be supported by either capital or
operational initiatives. Typically, refuel facilities
are manned by at least one person at all times and
trucks can spend up to one hour per day travelling
to refuel. As there is no manning required for an
automated solution, refuelling stations me be
optimally located “on-circuit” or even “in-pit” so
fleet productivity can be significantly enhanced.
ROBOFUEL is fully portable and is able to be
shifted throughout mine developments allowing
for the innovative technology to be placed where it
is exactly needed, thus constantly working with
the site.
The company told IM that the autonomous
truck installation it completed last year in the
Pilbara iron ore mining region of WA achieved site
acceptance in late 2019 and is now operating
successfully in production. SCOTT is also seeing
strong interest from the client for further systems
across several other WA operations. The next
project is also underway, for another WA iron ore
producer, and is due for completion in late 2020.
This will include improved interfacing with the
autonomous haulage system, and SCOTT is in
collaboration with the AHS system providers on
the system integration. Most of the design
changes to accommodate AHS trucks have been
around the remote interfacing with the vehicles,
and improved remote connectivity with operations
and maintenance personnel. Globally SCOTT
added that there is strong interest, particularly
SCOTT Automation's ROBOFUEL delivering fuel
to an AHS mining truck in the Pilbara
across Australia and the Americas, and it expect
several more of these projects to progress in
2020.
Universal Field Robots (UFR) has come out with
a system it calls AutoFuel. The company has an
R&D site near Brisbane airport and a test site near
the Port of Brisbane. The robot it says was
designed to improve the safety of workplaces, and
significantly increase productivity and
accountability. The AutoFuel autonomous truck
refuelling robot will be located next to the haul
road where trucks will arrive. “The robot will be
notified electronically that the truck is ready for
fuel, it will then position itself and connect the
nozzle to the truck. In around 5 minutes, the robot
will transfer a full tank of fuel to the truck and
disconnect, so the truck can continue hauling.”
UFR says the robot is self-contained and does
not require any external services. It is able to be
supervised at a remote work location using a GUI
and can fully function without an operator to
provide the refuelling. “This UFR product has a
vision system that allows the robot to see people
and inspect trucks in intricate detail. It has
sensors to locate the fuel nozzle and a gripper to
be able to remove the fuel cap.” To add some
perspective, it typically takes up to 30 minutes for
operators to refill fuel tanks currently.
“With the use of our robot, no personnel are
required to operate equipment at these fuelling
stations. This directly impacts the workers as they
would immediately have a significant decrease in
exposure to hazards, impacting workplace safety
meaningfully. Our robot will provide the mining
industry with increased truck utilisation, giving the
ability for mines to save a substantial amount
each year. Along with this, the sensing systems of
the robot will allow accurate and consistent data
to be collected which will effectively manage fuel
allocation – directly improving the accountability
on the overall usage of fuel. Our autonomous
truck refuelling robot provides workers with an
innovative solution to effectively and safely refuel
trucks to help keep the mines moving as
efficiently as possible.”
Jeff Sterling, the UFR MD,
told IM: “We are in the
development stage and have
designed and manufactured
and are testing the fuelling
system currently. The fuelling
attachment works on our E20C
machine of which we have a
number in service for other
types of work in mining and so
the current development now
that we have the attachment
built is testing and finalising the
software and sensor set up. We
have had some reasonable
interest from not just mining but ports and defence.
Cascadia leverages decision intel to
up fuel efficiency
Cascadia Scientific, a Vancouver firm specialising
in high accuracy fuel measurement for the mining
sector, has principally leveraged its platform to
deliver decision intelligence used to increase fuel
efficiency. Most recently, the company has its
sights trained on using measured fuel burn to
revolutionise maintenance scheduling strategy.
For the past 18 months, Cascadia Scientific has
been collecting maintenance data from
subscribers to determine the timing and
motivation of historical preventive maintenance
activity. The goal was to determine how closely
service intervals aligned with the fundamental
processes that drive equipment wear, and
consumable depletion or deterioration. In most
settings, maintenance activities were triggered by
the passage of time, most commonly engine runtime,
but in other cases key-on time or elapsed
days.
Cascadia Scientific demonstrated that the
passage of time represents a very poor proxy for
equipment utilisation. When considering engine
runtime, the most reliable of the time triggered
approaches, variable equipment allocation and
idle times contributed to variability in fuel burn
across maintenance intervals that exceeded 45%.
Fuel consumption, unlike time, naturally reflects
operational intensity and is the key to their
enhanced strategy.
Analysis of maintenance records was performed
to establish safe limits for fuel consumption
between service activities, and these became the
basis for future service triggers. To further ensure
continued equipment health, the new strategies
combined fuel consumption triggers with
extended time based triggers using a “first to fire”
principle whereby a service event is scheduled
upon the exceedance of either limit.
The outcome was an extension in the average
time between preventive maintenance events of
roughly 14% which provides a reduction in
maintenance cost and increased equipment
availability. Critically, this average included
shortened maintenance intervals that were
triggered in response to particularly fuel intensive
operating periods.
Cascadia Scientific is nearing completion of new
platform module that will allow uses to implement
these strategies with triggers based not only on
fuel and time, but also in response to loading
events, distance travelled and other key
operational metrics.
Ground Force fuel & lube delivery
innovations
Ground Force Worldwide offers a variety of fuel &
lube solutions, including conventional, articulated,
rigid frame, skid and smaller standalone options.
All its fuel/lube solutions offer quick fill rates of
36 International Mining | JULY/AUGUST 2020