How Can We Improve Critical Mining Equipment Safety?

Effectively Assessing and Mitigating Failure

Exponent helped our client significantly reduce downtime across multiple mining sites in the Southwestern U.S. — where lost productivity can exceed $1 million per day, per site. Through targeted failure assessments and mitigation strategies, our team delivered actionable insights that enabled the client to maintain operations and avoid costly disruptions.

THE CHALLENGE

Over the course of two years, our mining client in the Southwestern U.S. experienced heavy equipment failures that threatened worker safety and cost millions in lost productivity. They turned to Exponent to help investigate the failures at multiple sites.

EXPONENT'S MULTIDISCIPLINARY SOLUTION

Exponent's failure analysis experts worked on multiple projects across the U.S., employing metallurgical and corrosion engineering, mechanical engineering, and thermal sciences expertise to evaluate equipment and infrastructure failures.

Exponent performed detailed materials characterization and testing on mechanical equipment, such as gears and bearings, to determine how they perform in harsh conditions with extreme use over time. We examined heavy equipment including hot-gas fans, overhead cranes, trunnion bearings, tailings pipes, crusher liners, and conveyor belts to provide insights into component failures and considerations for avoiding future failures.

Exponent's Impact

Our metallurgical analysis and inspection findings provided the mine operator with the insights and solutions needed to operate their diverse array of equipment in harsh conditions — including timely feedback and recommendations to mitigate future failures and risks based on our testing results. Our client utilized Exponent's findings regarding fatigue cracking in 6-foot-diameter trunnion bearings to develop inspection protocols across their fleet of bearings and, with Exponent's assistance, detected early-stage fatigue cracking in additional trunnion bearings — preventing costly future failures and enhancing employee safety.

What Can We Help You Solve?

Exponent offers a full range of failure analysis services, from metallurgical and corrosion evaluation to mechanical testing and analysis. Our experts have decades of experience in the mining and heavy equipment sectors and can assess and help rectify many heavy-machinery failure modes.

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