Measures to prevent damage and to extent the service life of a rotary excavator

Abstract The rotary excavator is a complex machine system, the main part of the ECS (excavator-conveyer-spreader) system, used in open-pit mining. Such a machine’s service life can last for decades, it generally operates in the harsh exploitation conditions, which requires that its vital structures must be continuously controlled and well maintained. Damage or fracture of parts or assemblies of a rotary excavator can be caused by influence of various manufacturing, construction, exploitation conditions or environmental factors. Analysis of those eventual failures can be performed by various methods, out of which the most suitable are the failure analysis methods, for example the fault-tree analysis (FTA), the Ishikawa fishbone (cause-and-effect) diagrams or the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). In this article are presented results of the fault tree analysis of possible causes of rotary excavator’s parts, as well as measures to prevent their damages and/or fractures and to extend the service life of an excavator as a whole. The model of the organizational system for the rotary excavator’s maintenance is given, as well.