| Summary: | Effective dewatering and refrigeration are crucial in mining. Cascading dewatering systems, which are common in deep gold mines, are very energy intensive. These systems present several opportunities for energy cost savings initiatives. Due to rising costs in the gold-mining industry and the stagnant gold price, these initiatives need to be sustained. Maintenance is therefore required on several sections to ensure sustainability.
The literature study in this dissertation investigates the major sections affected by maintenance. Detailed investigations highlight problems that affect project performance negatively. These investigations, together with the literature study, were used to create a maintenance procedure. The focus of the maintenance procedure is on identifying problems and presenting recommended solutions.
The new maintenance procedure is divided into four sections: data loss, mechanical, control and instrumentation, and control parameters. Data loss can be rectified by retrieving data and addressing the cause of the issue. Mechanical problems are fixed by following equipment-specific procedures. Control and instrumentation is divided into software, communication and instrumentation subsections. Each of these categories present several steps to deliver feasible solutions. The control parameters section consists of subsections relating to constraints, preferences and feedback. The new maintenance procedure ensures that the system is effectively controlled within all constraints – thereby sustaining energy cost savings measures. All the procedures use continued feedback to ensure project sustainability and client satisfaction.
The impact of the new maintenance procedure was tested using three case studies. The results proved that structured maintenance helps to maintain sustainable energy cost savings. The combined target impact for the three case studies was an average evening peak load shift of 8.39 MW. The combined average impact achieved during the selected twelve months was 10.16 MW, which resulted in an approximate cost saving of R8.05 million. The significant savings sustained confirm the importance of the new maintenance procedure. === MIng (Mechanical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015
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