If there’s one thing every mine site superintendent knows about haultruck tyres, it’s: “The more they turn, the more we earn.”
That truism is important because with each tyre costing roughly the same amount as a Mercedes Benz, the cost of replacing haul road tyres is one of the major expenditures in any mining operation.
So if there were some way to increase the performance and extend the life of your haultruck tyres, you’d definitely want to know about it, right?
There is. With our Road Management Services, it all comes down to where the rubber meets the road.
A better running surface is key to the life of haultruck tyres
Want to extend the life of your haultruck tyres?
Then look beyond the tyres themselves, to the running surface – the better quality it is, the longer your tyres will last.At Dust-A-Side Australia we’ve proven that a stabilised running surface, consisting of a 50-75mm bonded wearing course with a bitumen seal layer, not only results in reduced loss of fines and less water ingress, but also leads to a less aggressive haulroad surface from a tyre perspective.
This improves haultruck tyres life significantly, and it is borne out by a low Roughness Defect Score (RDS).
Once again, in a study undertaken over a period of 32 weeks, a haul road treated with DAS Product proved to have a defect score around one-third of the average RDS on other comparable non-treated haulroads.
Less water on haul roads also improves tyre life
With their stabilised wearing course, dust seal and on-going maintenance system, Dust-A-Side Australia haulroads have a notably reduced need for water.
This is a vitally important point to remember because wet haul roads increase wheel slip, decrease traction and increase the cutting action of rocks – wet rubber is far softer than dry rubber and cuts 10 times more easily.
It has been proven that when water trucks are unavailable, the tyre rock damage is invariably lower.
Therefore, a reduction in water will:
- Decrease tyre wear rates
- Reduce the incidence of rock cuts, and
- Increase overall tyre life.
Reduced temperature – another factor affecting haultruck tyre wear and tear
It’s a scientific fact that the rougher a running surface is the hotter your tyres will run.
Tonne kilometre per hour (TKPH) measures the work load of a tyre, based on the weight and speed that the tyre can handle without overheating and causing it to prematurely deteriorate.
Theoretically when a tyre is operating at its TKPH rating, its internal belt temperature will be at its maximum. It is desirable that a radial tyre has an internal temperature of between 100 to 105ºC.
At 110 ºC, rubber reversion starts to occur and the tyre will be subjected to irreversible damage.
With this in mind, the tyre TKPH rating must always be greater than site operating TKPH; otherwise the strength of rubber is dramatically reduced.
Improve haultruck tyre performance, from the ground up
As you’ll read in our Haul Road Construction eBook, rather than try to implement a “quick fix” on an existing haul road, it’s best to design and build haulroads right the first time to improve tyre performance.
That way, everything can be taken into consideration, including:
- Haul road sub-base
- Camber, and
- Superelevation.
As you can see from this example comprising a fleet of 48 Komatsu 930E haul trucks, Dust-A-Side Australia demonstrated a 15.5% improvement in tyre life over a 24-month period.
That was ON TOP of these extraordinary figures:
- Water savings of over 90%
- Fuel savings of over 5%
- Reduction in water cart fleet by up to 75%
- Grading reduced by up to 70%
- Electric motor life increased by up to 2.5 times
And that didn’t even take into account, other potential gains such as:
- Strut & suspension life increased
- Improved braking and better brake life
- Road maintenance and need to rebuild reduced
- Less operator fatigue and injury
- 4WD not required
- Water proof layer and better drainage allowing more work during the wet and quicker restart after wet weather
- Increased life of equipment parts and consumables due to less dust
- Visual environmental improvement
What to learn more about Road Management?
For more information and advice about extending the life of haul road tyres with our Road Management Services, please contact the expert team of engineers at Dust-A-Side Australia on 1800 662 387 or simply click here to contact us.
