Fault detection in Off-road vehicle prevents unplanned downtime at Vale

Detecting a in the gearing of an off-road vehicle’s lift pump and brake cooling system has prevented huge inconvenience. Check it out!

In the mining industry, the reliability and efficiency of off-road vehicles are crucial for continuous and safe operation. Among the important components of these vehicles are the lift pump and the brake cooling system. Both operate under extreme load and temperature conditions. The purpose of continuous monitoring of this equipment is therefore to anticipate anomalies and take preventive action. This guarantees operational reliability, the safety of the asset and of the employees driving the equipment.

In this context, the implementation of Dynamox’s wireless vibration sensors has emerged as an efficient solution. Installed in hard-to-reach places, these sensors provide a significant advantage by eliminating the need to stop to collect data. This ensures remote and continuous monitoring.

Check out the photos below to see where the sensor responsible for collecting data in this success story was installed. As it was fixed inside the tank, on the hydraulic motor, in order to diagnose a fault without the Dynamox sensor in this location, it would be necessary to drain the hydraulic oil from the tank and open an inspection window positioned in front of it.

A failure in the lift pump and brake cooling, if not detected in advance, can cause poor vehicle performance when lifting the tipper. It can also cause high temperatures and low oil flow pressure. This would result in brake cooling failure, poor equipment performance or immediate asset downtime.

Read also: Off-road vehicles: the main faults in these assets (dynamox.net)

Detection of gear failure in the lift pump and brake cooling

In this case, Vale’s predictive maintenance team, after installing the Dynamox sensors, verified on the Web Platform that there was an abnormal vibration of the pump’s gear frequency, indicating a fault.

Thus, with the predictive report, the mine equipment maintenance management team requested that the pump inside the tank be inspected and aligned.

Check the vibration spectrum before maintenance:

In the spectrum, observing the vibration peaks, an abnormal behavior of the pump’s gear frequency was detected, indicating a gear failure.

During the inspection carried out after opening the tank window, the following conditions were detected:

Pump misalignment:

And contamination of the hydraulic oil:

After the maintenance, the technicians checked the vibration data again on the Web Platform. The asset was found to be operating normally again:

With Dynamox’s technology, Vale’s team at Mina do Sossego ensured that the off-road vehicle resumed operations. In addition, a catastrophic failure was avoided thanks to continuous monitoring and efficient maintenance.