www.centennialcoal.com.au

Underground Shuttle Car Collision Avoidance Trial

File Name:

Peter Nelson Engineering Manager – Myuna Colliery

Background

• The interaction of people with “Shuttle Cars” in the underground mining environment presents an element of risk which is found in all “Coal Mines”

• Although a number of surface trials have been undertaken, there has not been any significant underground trials of proximity detection/collision warning systems on development equipment to date.

• Centennial Coal accepted the challenge of undertaking an underground trial of the Mine Site Technology / Strata Worldwide equipment on a Joy 10SC32 Shuttle car

• A Shuttle Car was chosen due to the amount of machine – person interactions each working shift

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Centennial Coal - Myuna Colliery

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Site Details

• Myuna Colliery is an underground coal mine located in Wangi Wangi, on the western side of Lake Macquarie, in the lower Hunter Valley.

• Myuna was identified by Centennial Coal management as being an ideal candidate for this trial of the MST / Strata Proximity Awareness solution.

• Myuna employs around 264 people and is a first workings mine that uses “place change” with some “partial extraction” mining methods in up to three coal seams primarily under Lake Macquarie.

• Myuna now has five operating units after an extra district was added recently.

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Site Details (Cont)

• A typical operating District has 1 x Continuous Miner; 3 x Shuttle Cars; 2 x Multi Bolters; 1 x Feeder Breaker, all operating in 7 to 9 headings, where machine flitting occurs several times a shift.

• Myuna has a coal sizing plant on the surface and supplies thermal coal directly to Eraring Power Station, via an overland conveyor system.

• During these trials at the mine, we have recognised that our underground operation would have an increased level of safety awareness with the deployment of a system like the MST / Strata Proximity solution.

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Trial Scope

• When Centennial Myuna took on this project we Risk Reviewed the process and identified early on that we were comfortable to have the Shuttle Car alarm both visually and audibly in the Warning and Danger Zones, but we did not intend to take this trial to “machine interaction” where the car braking or traction systems would come into play, due to operational concerns.

• The audible and visual alarms are easily identified, where both the Shuttle Car driver and interacting operator are alerted effectively.

• We considered, for the trial purposes, that this was an adequate level of control to alert operators of their interaction with the Shuttle Car, and test the system.

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Equipment Used

The MST / Strata HazardAvert Proximity Awareness solution consists of number of key components, being: • The MST ICCL cap lamp battery with embedded PAD

(Personal Alarm Device) and LED flasher with audible buzzer fitted to the head piece.

• The Strata HazardAvert Proximity system which includes 4 x field generators, display pod and an FLP control enclosure.

• Audible and visual alarms in the Shuttle Car drivers cabin.

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ICCL (Integrated Communications Cap Lamp)

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• The ICCL with HazardAvert PAD is the Integrated Communications Caplamp incorporating a HazardAvert PAD sleeve. This sleeve slides over and connects to the existing Myuna Mine ICCL caplamp battery.

• The HazardAvert PAD contains a receiver which measures the magnetic field produced by the HazardAvert Proximity Detection System on the Shuttle Car and transmits a high frequency signal back to the generator.

System Components

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Generator x 4

Control enclosure

J Box

ICCL Cap Lamp and PAD with LED flasher and alarm tone head piece

Flasher and audible alarm unit Display

Pod

ICCL Caplamp – with flashing LED and audible warning

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Flashing Red LED which reflects through the helmet rim magnified “eye”

Audible warning alarm in head piece

HazardAvert Generators/Control Unit

installed on the Shuttle Car

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Shuttle Car Boom Generator

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Proximity Generator

Junction box enclosure

Shuttle Car Hopper End Generator

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Generator protected behind non-metalic guard [Garlite]

Junction Box enclosure

Shuttle Car Proximity controller and alarm module

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MST Proximity system controller

Audible and visual alarm module in front of the drivers cabin

System Operation – (The Peanut Project)

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Danger Zone: Strobe will show RED flashing LED’s and the siren will sound

Warning Zone: Strobe will show Yellow Flashing LED’s

Silent Zone: in the drivers cabin

Trial Stages of system Implementation

• Surface – equipment installation and commissioning – 6 weeks

• Communications to the workforce on the Trial – 2 days • Training of the district crews on the system and what

they would be experiencing during the trial – 2 days • Commissioning the machine in the operating district – 1

week • Downloading and verifying data – several weeks/months • Commissioning the flashing cap lamp with audible

buzzer – 1 week • Commissioning the flashing beacon and audible warning

– 2 days

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Production District – Operator Response Plan

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Trigger Action Response Plan TARP

Title: Shuttle Car operating with Proximity Detection System fitted

No: TARP_

Position Normal Level 1 Trigger Level 2 Trigger

Shuttle Car Operator

1. Shuttle Car Visual / Audible alarm not in alarm condition • Operate shuttle car as per normal

operations

1. Shuttle Car Yellow Alarm LED’s flashing • Slow vehicle down until operator in

warning zone can be seen and proceed with caution

2. Shuttle Car Red Alarm LED’s flashing and siren sounding • Bring vehicle to complete stop until

operator is clear of the Hazard Zone AND

• If operator is unable to reposition out of Hazard Zone communications to be established between operators and proceed with caution

Miner Drivers and Pedestrians

1. Cap Lamp Alarm unit not in alarm condition • Continue operations as normal

OR 2. Shuttle car Visual / Audible alarm not in alarm • Continue operations as normal

1. Cap Lamp Alarm Unit Slow Beep/Flash OR

2. Shuttle Car Yellow Alarm LED’s flashing • Communicate to Shuttle car operator that

you are in the Warning Zone. • Be aware of the Shuttle car movements

and consider repositioning out of the Warning Zone

1. Cap Lamp Alarm Unit continuous Beep/Flash

OR 2. Shuttle Car Red Alarm LED’s flashing and siren sounding • Communicate to Shuttle Car Operator to

“STOP THE VEHICLE” and reposition yourself clear of the Hazard Zone

AND • If unable to reposition out of the Hazard

Zone communications to be established between operators and proceed with caution

Trial Data – recorded from a machine download

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Date Time Lamp ID Event Name Function 5/06/2014 7:45:23 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 7:50:27 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 7:57:49 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver Shift Details 5/06/2014 7:58:09 656 Zone_HAZARD B Jones Miner Driver Places Cut Miner Driver 5/06/2014 7:58:19 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 6 Up B Jones 5/06/2014 8:03:34 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5 Up B Jones 5/06/2014 8:12:32 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 4 Up B Jones 5/06/2014 8:13:49 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 7 Right K Sumner 5/06/2014 8:43:21 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 8:50:19 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver Total cars SC942 Cars 5/06/2014 8:55:51 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 85 43 5/06/2014 9:04:19 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:10:50 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver Total Hazard Intrusions 5/06/2014 9:15:44 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 25 5/06/2014 9:21:40 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:27:00 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:34:32 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:44:20 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:50:29 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 9:56:22 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 10:20:47 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 10:22:27 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 10:28:26 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 10:32:36 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:19:01 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:20:52 656 Zone_HAZARD B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:20:54 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:21:01 656 Zone_HAZARD B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:21:04 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:24:33 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:31:11 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:37:16 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:41:52 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 11:48:53 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 12:03:40 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver 5/06/2014 12:03:57 656 Zone_Warn2 B Jones Miner Driver

Operator entered Warning Zone - Yellow

Operator entered Danger Zone - Red

Trial Data – 1 shift of data download - sample

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System Operation

• The Shuttle Car cabin is set up as a “Silent Zone” to allow the operator to be within the confines of the cabin and not trigger the alarms.

• For the system to be in a healthy state it must always detect an ICCL cap lamp within the confines of the silent zone whenever the Park Brake is lifted

• The proximity system is only active while ever the Park Brake is lifted on the machine allowing machine movement. A system condition which was identified during the surface trials at Myuna.

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Video of surface Trial

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System trial learnings

• Equipment Certification – Strata HazardAvert equipment identified as non compliant during introduction to site process (cables / glands)

• System adjustments of the fields required “power on” and open access to the controller enclosure. Not suitable when in service U/G.

• Data collection for accurate reporting – initially this was a concern as the “time stamping” of data was not reliable and hard to decipher – this has been improved significantly during the trial time.

• Improved data report formats is being investigated further by MST / Strata. 23

System Trial learnings

• The field zone edges are very repeatable and accurate to within centimeters

• The trial only utilised the systems capabilities within a limited scope, as there are other enhancements available, which we haven’t trailed at this stage. (i.e test function on Pads; Remote Stop ability on the Pads etc..)

• The equipment mounted to the Shuttle Car has proved to be physically robust following several months of trials.

• From the data collection we have realised that in “place change mining” it is very difficult for the miner driver to be clear of the Shuttle Car “Danger Zone” during certain cut sequences.

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System Trial learnings

• Also, if a second person or persons walk into the “Danger Zone” after the first identified person has set the alarms off, there is a risk the others would not be seen.

• We have noticed that the miner driver, while maintaining his correct standing position area away from the CM “No Go Zones”, will still overlap the S/C “Danger Zone” field on occasions

• We have also noticed that the operators have become “accepting of the alarms” over time – we believe that machine interaction may be “the next step”?

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System Trial learnings

• The operators involved with the trial at Myuna were very patient with the testing processes, and also very receptive to the potential safety improvements this system or others can offer their type of role.

• We installed the equipment onto the Shuttle Car in early January 2014, and it has taken until July/August for the system to be fully operational within our identified limits.

THANK YOU

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