- Title
- Determining the energy absorption capacity of safety berms in surface mining
- Creator
- Thoeni, Klaus; Giacomini, Anna
- Relation
- Bowen Basin Symposium 2015. Bowen Basin Symposium 2015: Bowen Basin and Beyond: Proceedings (Brisbane, Qld 07-09 October, 2015) p. 489-496
- Publisher
- Geological Society of Australia Inc. Coal Geology Group and the Bowen Basin Geologists Group
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Safety berms or windrows for haul roads and dump faces are currently designed using rules of thumb, such as the berm height must be at least half the diameter of the tyre of the largest vehicle travelling on site. However, the energy absorption capacity of safety berms is currently not known. This paper presents the results of ACARP project C21032 “Energy absorption capacity of muck piles and their status as engineered hard barriers”. The approach combines experimental testing with numerical modelling. Full-scale experiments were conducted at two different mine sites where trucks reversed into various berms. The experiments allowed investigating the interaction between truck and berm at low reversing velocities. More extensive testing was carried out in the laboratory at a 1:50 scale. The latter allowed increasing the approach velocity until failure of the berm was observed for various approach conditions. A numerical model calibrated by using the data from the full-scale tests was finally used to corroborate the failure velocities. The results clearly highlighted the effect of the berm geometry and the impact conditions on the berm response after impact. Experimental tests and numerical investigations demonstrated that the energy absorption capacity of safety berms is currently overestimated. Whereas the current rule of thumb might still be applicable to dump sites where trucks travel at low velocities, it cannot be the case for haul roads, as the effectiveness of safety berms strongly depends on their geometry and the impact velocity of the truck.
- Subject
- safety; surface mining; windrows; haul truck; haul road; dump site
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1330697
- Identifier
- uon:26450
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780646944555
- Language
- eng
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