Assorted Underground Mine Improvements

Project summary & impacts

Info

Five assorted, completed mine-improvement projects combining engineering design, analysis, project management, process engineering, communication, drafting and teamwork.

>5 FEA safety factor

100+ km Underground roads served

Shop Visits Visited multiple manufacturing shops

Underground Road Rehabilitation Drag

~$17,000 Total procurement cost

FEA Iterative Finite Element Analysis

Hand analysis Created hand sketches and calculations for presentation/discussion

Even beyond the main conveyor lines, small rocks existed on the roads as residue from mining machines and scoops. Thus, a road drag was needed along haulage roads which could be towed by maintenance equipment to break up rocks as operators traveled. I iterated on designs alongside my great coworker Maximus Litzenberger, who handled most of the administrative work.

Potash Conveyance Headcovers

<~$10,000 Prototype cost

Safety First Potash build-up wasn't very disruptive to production but could be to operator well-being

Fine potash particles and dust spilling from the belt conveyors was a hazard for vehicles traveling along underground roads — running into it could kick up a cloud of dust or harm transmission and other vehicle components. I designed a forkliftable safety headcover to be installed under the belt line in particularly hazardous conveyor areas.

Three smaller underground projects further showcasing mechanical design, drafting, FEA, project management and procurement.

Personnel Ore-Skip Headcover

To maintain the skips (buckets) that bring potash from 1 km deep underground, the maintenance crew enters a smaller cage to work within the shaft. Even the smallest chunks of potash falling from above reach terminal velocity and can seriously injure personnel. This is the initial design for a headcover within that skip cage aimed at eliminating the risk.