Reliability Study of 42 cu.m Shovel and 240 Te Dumper Equipment System with Special Reference to Gevra OCP, SECL, Bilaspur

The coal still remains and will continue to stay at the centre stage of India's energy basket due to occurrences in abundance thus fetching global rank both in respect as a producer and as a possessor, despite the intensified movement across the world over reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Opencast mining sharing this onus responsibility, it is in this standpoint the development and deployment of innovative technologies are an essence for the coal mining industry to be cost effective, ensure maximum recovery coupled with higher safety. Over the years since nationalization, we have witnessed mechanization of underground mining facing stiff limitations due to number of restrictive geo-mining parameters and thus harnessing the coal output. Thus on a long term perspective, a need is felt to frame our strategy focusing on opencast production with concerted efforts on innovative technologies specifically to winning of moderate to greater depth coal reserves. It was against this backdrop, Gevra OCP deployed 42 cu.m shovels and 240 Te dumpers with O.I.T.D.S (Operator Independent Truck Dispatch System) as a most modern and innovative system. Today for the indigenous coal sector, the system stands as a hallmark of production giving minimum exposure to risk and providing logical and systematic method of production. The capacity and productivity of these equipment systems depends primarily on work conditions, geo-mining profile and deployment methodology. This paper attempts at reliability study of these machineries. The estimates of reliability are carried out using statistical analysis of failure data sets coupled with review of system deployment conditions which accounts for geo-mining and operational parameters of the mine.