Standards Development

Scope

The proposed standard will encompass the inspection and maintenance of underground mine structures, including;

• mine shafts and,

• associated underground mine installations. (it is not intended that this standard be applied to surface structures such as the headframe).

It is intended to provide practical guidelines to assist plant maintenance personnel with the following in respect of the mine structures:

i. What should be inspected and monitored?

ii. How should inspection and monitoring be accomplished?

iii. At what intervals should inspections and monitoring be done?

iv. What should be recorded and when?

v. What should be expected in an inspection report?

vi. What follow-up is required?

It is not intended that the proposed standard be used for certification purposes.

No guidance is provided for the design or construction of plant structures. In addition, it is not intended to provide guidance as for pressure vessel or similar systems.

Purpose

One of the challenges facing a typical mine is how to maintain their current infrastructure as safely and as cost effectively as possible. This has the benefit of ensuring the operation of these systems occurs safely as well as ensuring increased longevity of the operation. There is currently no international standard available in the mining industry which can provide guidance on how this can be achieved.

The primary objective of this standard is to fill this gap and provide a standard for the inspection and maintenance of mine shafts and associated structures. This standard is intended to be applicable to both new and old mines. In the case of new mines, it is intended that this standard will provide a structure for the development of an inspection and maintenance system which will prolong the life of the mine as well as ensure that the mine structures can be used safely.

In the case of older mines, or mines being recommissioned it is intended to provide an inspection and maintenance basis for the evaluation of the structures in the mine such that the mine can be used safely.

This standard will provide a basis to assess the current condition of the plant structures with reference to their original strength and condition, and to ensure that the appropriate structural maintenance is carried out where significant deterioration has occurred.

In other fields of Engineering there are standards which are used for the evaluation of aging systems. There are international standards such as the API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 2007 Fitness-For-Service standard. This standard is specifically for assessing equipment in the refining the petrochemicals sectors design to ASME code.

Another standard, such as the BS7910 Guide to methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in metallic structures is published by British Standards for application to metallic structures across a range of industries.

This standard is therefore more general in its approach and is strongly orientated towards the assessment of defects in and around welds, and its most detailed procedures are for the assessment of fatigue and creep crack growth and the proximity to fracture.

Both of these standards, along with industry standards such as the Anglo Technical Division Safety and Inspection Maintenance Management guideline for plant structures will provide a solid basis for developing a standard which will be specific to the challenges facing mines in particular.

Finally, it is anticipated that this standard will be useful in providing specific technical requirements to complement national safety regulations applicable to mine structures”.