Hydraulic failures in mine vehicles have seen an uptick at New South Wales mines of late. Safe to Work investigates how miners can eliminate a pattern before it arises.
In a one-week period in late October, there were two potentially serious incidents in which mine vehicles lost steering and collided with earth walls.
Both incidents were the result of hydraulic failure in the steering circuits of mining-specific mobile plant.
The first incident saw a water cart collide with a windrow after losing control at a surface mine. The driver was uninjured.
The mine’s investigation found low hydraulic oil as the cause of the steering failure, with six hydraulic oil leaks going undetected.
The second incident occurred in an underground mine when two workers lost control of a personnel transport while driving outbye. The vehicle clipped a wall, damaging the vehicle’s bracket and suspension trailing arm.
An inspection discovered the hard pipe had come out of the steer cylinder fitting, dumping the hydraulic oil and causing the machine to lose power steering.
The NSW Resources Regulator chief inspector said these incidents highlight the need to inspect, monitor, and manage safety-critical functions, such as steering, to ensure the safety of workers within or near mobile plant.
This includes making sure maintenance records are on hand and reviewed regularly and implementing a process of recommissioning checks with supervisor sign-off to verify the plant is safe to return to service without maintenance induced failures.
In the first incident at the surface mine, the truck’s design didn’t include a low hydraulic oil reservoir light or alarm.
This led the Regulator to also call on designers and suppliers to engineer pre-failure warning devices onto mobile plant that take into consideration a broad range of potential failures.
Subscribe to Safe to Work to get the safety news that matters to the Australian mining industry.