Overburden excavation is an integral component of the surface mine production chain. In large mines, the walking dragline is a dominant strip mining machine. Dragline performance depends on the operating speed, the bucket payload, and the machine availability, which could be negatively impacted by the actions taken to increase the machine productivity. In this study, the writers develop the kinematics and dynamic modeling of a dragline front-end assembly using the vector loop and simultaneous constraint methods. Based on the results of the kinematics and dynamic simulations, stress modeling and analysis are performed. Detailed analysis of the simulation results show that the angular accelerations of the drag and hoist ropes are close to zero, which indicate very smooth simulated operations. The respective maximum drag and hoist forces are 100 and 75 kN, which also indicate a dominant drag operation. The maximum stress loading of the boom's Arm-1 (166.5 MPa) and Arm-2 (159.9 MPa) are less than the boom yield stress at 305 MPa. These results indicate machine health and longevity within the simulated conditions.
- Case Reports,
- Computer Aided Simulation,
- Dynamic Loads,
- Numerical Models,
- Stress Distribution,
- Excavation,
- Kinematics
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/samuel-frimpong/12/