Fuzzy expert analysis of the severity of mining machinery failure

Abstract

Mining machinery failure is almost an everyday occurrence. Usually the failures bare certain consequences, which require additional financial costs to repair and restore the system to its operational state. The consequences are viewed through negative and damaging effects a failure has on the machine, health and safety of the employees, work environment, and on the environment. The removal of the consequences of the failure requires additional financial investment, which has a negative impact on the company’s business. In order to prevent this, it is necessary to have Risk Centered Maintenance, where the risk assessment would include all the negative consequences of the risky event. The fuzzy expert assessment is presented in this paper, as well as the failure severity assessment based on the harmful effects of the failure. The negative effects of the machine component failure, such as the time needed for the repair, the possibility of workplace injury caused by the failure, and the impact it has on the environment, are analyzed in this paper as well. This approach to the severity of failure assessment enables a more comprehensive view of this risk indicator. It also enables the risk indicator “severity of failure” to gain greater significance in combination with other risk indicators. The developed model was presented on the example of typical failures of the hydraulic subsystems of a mobile crushing machine Lokotrack LT 1213S.