Replacement and maintenance analysis of longwall shearer using fault tree technique

Abstract

The productivity and profits of a mining company arise out of the reliable performance of its major equipment. Shearer is cutting and loading equipment used in the longwall mining of coal. Systematic reliability analysis reveals the sources of weakness that adversely affects the production and loopholes in the system. The purpose of the reported study is to develop a method from maintenance information such as time to failure (TTF) for pin pointing the weak links in the system. The present study has used fault tree (FT) technique to understand the failure logic of a longwall shearer and its components were ranked by Birnbaum factor. The subsequent analysis shows that results can be useful in replacement policy as well as in maintenance. © 2006 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.