EVALUATION OF A MONORAIL MINE HAULAGE SYSTEM

Special Research Report SR-78 The following advantages accrue to a monorail system compared to track haulage: 1. Derailment is impossible. 2. Track and road maintenance is eliminated. 3. Higher gradient can be overcome with less power demand. 4. Equipment maintenance is reduced drastically. 5. Haulage cost per ton-mile is reduced because less power is consumed. 6. It is not affected by a weak floor and back conditions. 7. Initial capital cost is much less than track haulage. 8. It is easily adopted to material and mantrip use. The basic conclusion to be derived from this study is that the monorail system is versatile. Besides its use in material handling and for mantrips in Europe and Great Britain, it can be used for ore haulage in small mines. The monorail requires a lower initial capital investment in addition to reduced operational and maintenance costs. Floor maintenance of haulage ways is completely eliminated. Haulage capacity of the system can be increased by eliminating waiting times, speeding up the monorail and adding more containers to the system. These facts establish the superiority of the monorail system over conventional equipment and should strongly be considered. For material handling very little clearance is required above the floor to move material either by hand or by rope hoist or even pushing it with a tractor. Therefore, a low seam is not a handicap to a monorail system in material handling. However, some modifications on the system may be necessary for different applications.