Good healthy carnage

[OzDozer]

In the 1970's and early 1980's, a friend ("Dasher" was his nickname) was manager of the Kalgoorlie branch of the Gascoyne Trading Co, a big West Australian trucking company from the late 1930's to the mid 1990's.

Gascoyne Trading got into road trains early in the piece, and they ran road trains out of Kalgoorlie hauling gold and nickel ore in the early 1970's.
These were two tandem-tandem dump (tipper) trailers usually hauled by White 4000's, or sometimes Macks.

The Govt built a new highway between Kalgoorlie and Kambalda about 1972 and it was one of the best highways in Western Australia, back then.
On this day, Dasher and another Gascoyne driver were hauling nickel ore from North of Kalgoorlie to the Kambalda Nickel Smelter for treatment.

They were purring along with Dasher well in the lead, and Dasher noticed a VW Beetle creeping up on him (truck speeds were limited to 80kmh in those days, and they didn't have big HP anyway).

Dasher forgot about the VW and his mind wandered off onto something else - when all of a sudden, he was shocked back into the present by a jerk, followed by massive crashing/bashing/screeching sounds, that frightened the crap out of him!

He looked in the rear view mirror, and was amazed to see a Beetle standing upright on its rear bumper, against the side of the rear trailer body, and spinning around and around, bashing into the trailer body repeatedly!!

Next thing, the Beetle flew out away from the trailer body, and rolled into a pile of wreckage in the roadside drain!
Dasher said there were papers and books and glass and debris, flying through the air everywhere, while all this was going on!! He said it was like something out of an American action movie!

He pulled up and ran back to the wreckage, still trying to figure out what had happened! He came across this little Asian guy crawling on his hands and knees in the grass - and this thought ran through his head, "God, what have I done, I've crippled this guy!"

So he ran up to him and asked if he was O.K. The little Asian guy says, "Yes, I'm O.K. - but I've lost my glasses, and I need them!".
It turned out this little Asian guy was a University student who wore Coke-bottle glasses, and who couldn't see anything without them! So he was on his hands and knees groping for his lost Coke-bottle glasses.

After they found his glasses, Dasher asked him what had happened. The little Asian guy said, "I was just starting to overtake you when the front LH (passenger side) tyre blew, and it pulled the car around sharply to the left, and the front of the car went under your wheels!"

They examined all the wreckage and marks on the road, and figured out that the VW had just got in front of the rear trailers front bogie, when it swerved left with the tyre blowout, and dived in between the two trailers!

The front bogie of the rear trailer then ran straight over the hood (bonnet) of the VW, flattening it completely (as there's nothing much there but sheet metal anyway) - and as the VW came out from behind the bogie, the VW rolled and twisted, and stood up vertically against the side of the trailer!!

It then "pirouetted" on its rear bumper several times (which is what Dasher first saw in the rear view mirror), bashing against the side of the rear trailer several times, before it got flung out across the highway!

All the books and papers Dasher saw, was the little Asian guys University study books and papers - Dasher said they were spread over the highway for a couple of hundred metres, and they spent quite a while picking them all up!
The little Asian guy was relatively unhurt, just a few cuts and bruises - but the VW Beetle was scrap!

 

[colson04]

One of those days

 

[Truck Shop]

Ain't hitting the like button on that.

 

[Acoals]

That's fun . . .

Going to try to weld it or replace the rod?

 

[colson04]

That's fun . . .

Going to try to weld it or replace the rod?

It's a rental. They're going to try welding it in the morning. If that doesn't work, there is a good hydraulic shop locally that can take it apart and replace the rod.

 

[Shimmy1]

It was welded originally....

 

[colson04]

It was welded originally....

Not while it was assembled and on the machine.

 

[Nige]

It was welded originally....

And it appears as though a poor quality weld was what started the failure. Not much chance of successfully repairing that on the machine, at least not long term anyway.

 

[sfrs4]

Not quite carnage, but most definitely a bad day at the office!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3123249151153152

 

[colson04]

The Welder arrived at 1030am andeft at 1230pm. I ran it for 4 hours after the Welder left, and it's still in one piece.

 

[OzDozer]

It'll be interesting to see how long his repair weld lasts, because there appeared to be a lot of crystallised metal in that shaft at the fracture.
A perfectly clean weld joint with no oil, proper heat treatment, pre-weld and post-weld, and removing the crystallised metal around the fracture, would be necessary to ensure a good weld repair.

 

[DMiller]

As that failed there is likely a stub portion of the shaft inserted into the cross tube for align and stress control, with that broken will not last long.

 

[funwithfuel]

One end or the other should have a spherical bearing. Straight pins and bushings on a thumb don't allow for flex and side loading. Just my opinion.

 

[mekanik]

In the late 1960's my dad bought a 1965 Pacific logging truck. It was the first truck with sixteen foot bunks in the area. He was hauling a load to the sort yard driving down a long straight stretch. You haven't seen dust until you are following an off highway truck on a dry gravel road.
He glanced in the mirror and saw a bright orange pickup box flying through the air into the ditch then the front half of the pickup followed it. He stopped and backed up. It turned out to be a crew-cab with four guys in it and no one was badly hurt. The pickup had pulled out to pass the log truck when they came to a single lane bridge. The pickup tried to get under the load of logs but it did not turn out well.
A late sixties pickup would not have even had seat belts in it.

 

[barrelroll]

This is a fixed mounted concrete pump used for pumping paste (concrete mixed with tailings) back fill in an underground mine. It uses poppet valves for suction and discharge instead of a rocker valve like a truck mounted pump. We've been washing out pressure poppet seats, discs, and nose cones at an alarming rate, we've been pumping to the highest levels they have ever tried to pump to. When they wash out it's about 6-8 hours of down time, the mill has to cut tonnage because they can't put full tons to our tailings pond, and the delay in backfill delays when areas next to the back fill can be mined. I think parts are $5-$10k per washout. Needless to say it's become a very expensive problem with a lot of people asking questions. The operators have been noticing the pump randomly goes from minimum speed to max speed each stroke. It finally did it while I was up there about an hour before the poppet washed out. Pump speed is supposed to ramp down at the end of a stroke of the material piston, shift poppets, and ramp back up. Instead it's doing 1 stroke at max pump speed, shifting poppets, and doing a stroke at minimum pump speed. The whack in pressures is probably the root cause of these washouts. Now we need to figure out what's causing the controls to not ramp up/ ramp down.

 

[DMiller]

Will likely find that no matter the engineers basis, that the material will continue to wash the seats as is too aggressive for the system. We were explained by a engineer that the Dirt Burner Condensate Pumps used at our river water intake system were being brought to speed wrong and eating the volutes as well impellers due to aggressive sand volume. Was not the material but the way operations ran the pumps. He was wrong.

Your program speed changes are not helping but aggressive materials does what is does best, eat machines.

 

[barrelroll]

Will likely find that no matter the engineers basis, that the material will continue to wash the seats as is too aggressive for the system. We were explained by a engineer that the Dirt Burner Condensate Pumps used at our river water intake system were being brought to speed wrong and eating the volutes as well impellers due to aggressive sand volume. Was not the material but the way operations ran the pumps. He was wrong.

Your program speed changes are not helping but aggressive materials does what is does best, eat machines.

I'm about 99% sure it's either a sensor, wiring, or PLC card causing it. Even when not going to uncharted territories it does it, right around the time operators started noticed the pump speed going nuts is when we started eating poppets like candy. It ate another 2 nights ago. The head pressures at play here are pretty substantial, around 800' of vertical and it's not a straight up vertical run.

I just got a call from our paste plant operator, the pump feeding the pump shown above made some "bad noises," is tripping, and won't pump. I have to wait till after blast to check out the carnage. It shouldn't trip, it should just sit there on the pressure relief. If everything is set properly it should be destroking the hydro pump and not able to whack high pressure switch or trip motors. I might have some more pictures to add in the morning.

Of course I go on days off in the morning for 14 days though volunteered to come in 2 days early to work with the factory guy when he comes out to site. I'm hoping the grey hair and education this thing is giving me will pay off in the long run. The other morning at breakfast after getting my ass kicked by it for some of the night a click out of delirious I'm attempting to explain what's going on to our engineer as #2 in the mine was ease dropping. It's either a good or really bad thing she knows my name...

 

[DMiller]

Is there a rep for the machine
Processor near to callable to diagnose this? Is there access to the programming to read the process as running to catch the glitch you suspect?

 

[barrelroll]

Is there a rep for the machine
Processor near to callable to diagnose this? Is there access to the programming to read the process as running to catch the glitch you suspect?

Yes, yes and yes.

The way this mine works we have fixed plant mechanics (me) and electricians. If they got word I opened up the electrical cabinet to see if the lights on the PLC were lighting up I would be on the next boat out of here. We only have 1 PLC guy, he's on the complete opposite rotation I'm on. I've gotten to know the factory rep and have been working with him. He's a mechanical engineer who spent 4 years as a field service guy first. He's not a PLC programmer/ electrical engineer and needs to consulate with their electrical engineers for some of the programming. The current round of electrical engineers weren't around when our pump was commissioned.


The issue we are seeing is basically the PLC is missing an input from a sensor missing adjusting pump speed for a stroke the pump, mid stroke it should run a pump speed set by the hopper level, when one of the differential cylinders gets towards the end of the stroke pump speed should ramp down to minimum pump speed, poppet valves should shift, differential cylinders should start moving, and pump speed should ramp back up. It's doing 1 stroke at minimum pump speed, and 1 stroke at a pump speed determined by hopper level.

The manufacturer wants to throw the latest and greatest program at it to update our 10 year old programing. I'm 99% sure we'll still have issues if we don't figure out where the issue with the hardware is.

 

[colson04]

I'm 99% sure we'll still have issues if we don't figure out where the issue with the hardware is.

And you are right. I've probably seen it a dozen times in my short career where some machine is doing something whack, and after all the troubleshooting, it was a failed sensor or cable that still gave somewhat plausible responses.

I was just a fly in the room (19 year old intern) and sat through daily meetings about a specialty parts washer that wasn't cleaning parts. The engineers argued constantly over whether it was a PLC issue, sensor issue, water system issue, pump failure, etc. Ultimately, a poor maintenance schedule and some failed sensor/sensor cable was the root cause, but it took them a couple weeks to sort it out with a lot of arguing between engineering department and the union ran maintenance department. Made me never want to work in a high production machining facility ever again. Nobody wanted to be accountable or responsible for it, always trying to pass blame to some other department.