Technology Review

MINE HAUL ROADS

Jack A Caldwell
August 2006

Table of Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................. 3 Information Sources ................................................................................................ 4 Impact Evaluation ................................................................................................... 6 Traffic Control.......................................................................................................... 6 Haul Road Design .....................................................................................................7 Health and Safety..................................................................................................... 9 Consultants .............................................................................................................10 Suppliers ................................................................................................................. 11

INTRODUCTION
This quote from the South African CSIR website best justifies this State-of-the-Art Review: Principal, but often neglected components of any mining or forestry operation are the haul roads. These roads are often designed with little expertise, resulting in expensive maintenance requirements and high vehicle operating costs. Truck haulage costs can amount to between 30 and 50 per cent of total surface mining costs and up to 60 per cent of total forestry operation costs. The savings from appropriate design, construction and maintenance of haulage roads and utilization of the most suitable materials can thus be significant. A U.S. source gives these statistics Mine haulage costs at open pit mines may represent 50% of the mining cost and sometimes as much as 25% of the total costs, which include processing, marketing, and overheads.

Acknowledgements to Environmental Products & Applications.

INFORMATION SOURCES
The following are the best manuals I came across on the design, operation, and use of mine access and haul roads:
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection District Mining Manual. U.S. Office of Surface Mining Design of Surface Mine Haulage Roads A Manual Guidelines for Mine Haul Road Design Haul Road Design Rules of Thumb Design Guidelines (Pennsylvania) Improved Visibility for Operating Large Haulage Equipment Large Tire Users Group Guidelines for Traffic Control at Surface Mines

Michigan Technological University

Traffic Patterns - Left Lane Driving

Michigan Mine Safety & Health Training Program

There is a Canadian volume that sounds good, but is not available free on the Internet; rather you have to send away for it and enclose a check for $250. I will stick to U.S. procedures for that price until somebody persuades me that it contains more than is available freely on the web. While it does not specifically address mine access roads, the California Highway Design Manual contains considerable useful technical information for anyone designing, maintaining, or using a mine access road. The volume by Conservation International Lightening the Lode, contains only short sections on mine access roads, but I found the text so well written, the treatment of the topic so different, and the overall perspective so focused that I recommend it.

IMPACT EVALUATION
A fascinating survey of a proposed mine access road and its physical impacts is study for the Tulsequah Chief Mine Access Road. Another overview of a long and important mine access road in Alaska is the update on the True North Project Haul Road.

Attlin to Tulsequah Chief Mine, British Columbia: Proposed Haul Road. From Skytruth

The perspective of the U.S. EPA on a mine access road is documented in the Engineering Evaluation for the Midnite Mine Haul Road.

TRAFFIC CONTROL
The Michigan guidelines for mine traffic control include a nice set of practical points.

HAUL ROAD DESIGN

A thesis from the University of Alberta examines new and better haul road designs for these large and expensive trucks. Here is the abstract from this thesis (slightly edited to improve clarity based on my reading of the remainder of the thesis): Large haul trucks are used at surface mines in Canada thus requiring better haul roads. The mines use empirical design methods, which may not result in optimum road design. A road design method based on resilient modulus results in better haul road designs than the CBR-based method. Numerical modeling done to analyze the effect of material modulus, layer thickness and tire interaction on strain bulbs in a haul road, showed that putting the stiffest layer at the top results in least vertical strainhence improved road performance and reduced truck wear and tear. Coal mines located adjacent to coal-fired electric power plants produce fly ash as a waste by-product. Tests of fly ash, kiln dust and aggregate mixes proved that fly ash significantly improves the strength and bearing capacity of aggregates thus enabling use of thinner layers for road construction.

A functional mine haul road needs a reliable wearing course to avoid damage to the mines tucks. The wrong wearing course material reduces safety, reduces truck efficiency, and increases road and vehicle maintenance. A paper from professors at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, establishes guidelines for selecting materials for unpaved mine haul roads. Without going into the details, suffice it to say that the professors document guidelines for selection of wearing course materials based on the materials density, dust ratio (a 7

geotechnical parameter I have not previously encountered, but it is intuitively obvious), Atterberg Limits, CBR, and particle size distribution. Even if you never use the complex system they set up, I recommend the table of haul road performance characteristics and the rating of severity of defects and the basis for deciding when to undertake repair and establishing the nature of such repair. On the Caterpillar site is a description of the following code that may be used to improve haul conditions on mine roads: Road Analysis Control (RAC) is an information product that allows the customer to monitor haul road conditions and improve large mining truck performance, productivity and safety while lowering repair, maintenance costs and downtime. Integrated with the Vital Information Management System (VIMS), RAC provides real time feedback to the operator about haul road conditions which are detrimental to cycle times and power train, frame, suspension components and tires. Through the VIMS message center, two levels of RAC events alert the operator to places in the haul road, which require attention, both from the standpoint of truck operation and support equipment. When used with a telemetry system like Caterpillar's VIMSwireless, By monitoring this data, mines will be able to identify and attend to haul road sections affecting cycle times and component life.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

At the MSHA site you will find a self guided tour on the safety of mine access and haul roads. The number of graphic pictures of vehicles and trucks run over, run down embankments, and tipped up because of poor mine road design, maintenance, or use, reminds us all of the criticality of this topic to cost-effective and safe mining. A visually effective presentation is the Michigan Mine Safety and Health Program Guidelines for Traffic Control at Surface Mines . See also the TechnoMine review on mine health and safety.

CONSULTANTS
Computer codes to help in designing mine haul roads are found at sites including:

Creative Engineering

Mincon

SEH

Surpac Minex

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SUPPLIERS
Sadly no one can supply a mine haul road; it was to be designed and constructed in situ. And it has to be maintained. The supplier most likely to be of interest it the one who can help control the dust from an unpaved road. Here are some such suppliers and information sources: CBR Plus North America. I particularly liked their brochure, including the history of the product development in South Africa and the soil chemistry lesson that explains why the product works. Dust Pro. In addition to product descriptions, their website is a fine source of information about the technology of dust suppression and the regulations that make it necessary. Mega Corp has the trucks that do what I am most familiar with, namely spray vast quantities of wter on the roads. How refreshing that always way in the hot deserts of my first construction site. Midwest Industrial Supply, Inc has a well-stocked website with loads of information on and a wide range of products for conventional and other dust control methods in mining and other industries. I will go back to this site. They even have products for bike trails. They get my vote.

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Soiltac Dust Control provides dust control materials to the US military in Iraqinteresting side aspect of operations in an undoubtedly dusty place.

Polo Citrus Australia has the prettiest website with natural dust control product for sale. Not quite what you expect from mining Australia. Worth taking a look at even if only to see their photo gallery

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Dust-A-Side is a South African-based company specializing in total dust control management systems for the mining industry. They have dust binding products and construction and maintenance programs to help you control your mines dust. Dustkill is a mid-west distributor of 100 percent agriculturally derived oils the cure, stabilize, control, and provide dust abatement for mine haul roads. Road Material Stabilizers (Pty) Ltd. carries that fascinating South African (Pty) after its name. I once studied the law behind this, but forget the details. Regardless, they have a full line of soil stabilizers, binders, dust suppression and erosion control products. RhinoSnot Soil Stabilizer. Who can resist a product with this name. They promote its use on mine tailings, landfills, and stockpile caps. And it is used in Afghanistan by the U.S. Marines. Actually the company is called Environmental Products & Applications, but that is ordinary!

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The Martha Mine case history of dust control is interesting as an example of full-scale mine application and use. The Foam Book is an odd website containing links to other site and publications on dust control and other foam technologies. But mine roads is hardly it focus so go here for general interest only. The Dust Control Handbook covers dust control from all aspects of minerals processing industries; it is comprehensive. Warajay International in Australia supplies products for road and pavement stabilization and dust suppression.

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