T 282 B Trucks

Trucks
Job Report
T 282 B
Trucks Achieving High Availability at
TransAlta’s Highvale Coal Mine
Situation
Assignment Report
The Highvale Mine is one of three TransAlta-owned surface coal
mines. It is a sub-bituminous coal strip mine located south of Lake
Wabamun, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of Edmonton, Alberta. TransAlta contracts Prairie Mines & Royalty Ltd. (PMRL) to
operate the mine.
Coal from Highvale is used to fuel TransAlta’s Sundance and
­Keephills coal-fired power plants. These power plants have a
combined annual power output greater than 2800 Megawatt
(MW). An additional 450MW plant, Keephills 3 (K3), will be commissioned in 2011.
In operation since 1970, Highvale is the largest surface strip coal
mine in Canada, covering 12,140 hectares. Within this area, five
pits are actively licensed and mined.
As the mine progresses through its long term plan, the level of
overburden is becoming thicker. As a result of the amount of
overburden and the increasing coal burn requirements, TransAlta
is using trucks and shovels to remove the overburden in excess
of the dragline capacity.
Approximately 13 million tonnes of coal are mined at the Highvale
Mine each year. When the Keephills 3 thermal plant is completed,
it will require an additional 1.8 million tonnes each year.
Six T 282 B trucks, featuring ultra class payloads, significantly increased production levels.
Solution
Six Liebherr T 282 B diesel electric 363 metric tonne (400 short
ton) haul trucks were purchased by TransAlta as key compo­
nents in changing the mine from a pure dragline operation to
a dragline/pre-strip operation utilizing ultra class trucks for increased production requirements.
The first two Liebherr T 282 B trucks were commissioned in early
January 2008. The next two trucks followed suit between early
February and late March. Liebherr, in cooperation with TransAlta
and PMRL, ensured that the trucks operating at Highvale had a
successful first year of operation.
A major factor contributing to the success of the Liebherr T 282 B
trucks at Highvale Mine was the Liebherr on-site support. Highly trained and attentive service personnel ensured that this new
fleet of trucks would have the proper preventative maintenance,
scheduled maintenance and prompt emergency service to
achieve high availability throughout the year. The same support
team responsible for the assembly of the trucks was assigned to
perform their maintenance and to provide training to TransAlta’s
service personnel.
Proper maintenance is critical to the longevity and overall success of mining equipment at any operation. In a site with extreme
cold temperatures for over a third of the year, the maintenance
and service support become even more important. Engine preheat and heated dump body systems provide additional levels of
complexity to the truck and must be maintained in top condition.
The truck fleet averaged just below 95% availability for the first year of operation.
Along with a dedicated support team, Liebherr also unveiled a
new downtime and availability tracking tool to be used in conjunction with service support. This tool, not only with TransAlta
but at all sites where Liebherr trucks operate, is known as the
“Availability Portal” and was designed to standardize the way
Liebherr receives downtime data and to improve and simplify
the existing process of analyzing that data.
Performance
With a combination of qualified onsite support and the Availability Portal, TransAlta enjoyed a very high average availability
throughout 2008 for the T 282 B trucks. With five months of the
year averaging over 95 percent availability, the truck fleet averaged just below 95 percent availability for the entire year. The
results included the month of February when the first two trucks
had over 98 percent availability. This high availability, combined
with a total of six trucks featuring ultra class payloads, made the
significant increase in production a reality.
Technical Data
T 282 B
Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW)_ _ 600 metric tonne / 661 short ton
Payload Class_______________ 363 metric tonne / 400 short ton
Empty Vehicle Weight (EVW)_ _ 237 metric tonne / 261 short ton
Engine_ _________________________________ MTU DD 20V4000
Engine Output per SAE J 1995___________ 2,722 kW / 3,650 hp
Drive System_____________________ Siemens-Liebherr AC drive
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Subject to technical modifications.