IMPROVED ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR ASSESSING TECHNICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF QUARRY RAILWAY TRANSPORT

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to improve analytical methods for assessing the compliance of technical parameters of quarry railway transport with planned work volumes. Methodology. The research was conducted using methods from railway operation theory and operations research. Results. To increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian mining products, it is important to reduce their production cost. The costs of quarry operations largely depend on the efficiency of industrial railway transport, which ensures the movement of large volumes of raw materials, finished products, and waste. The shortcomings of modern analytical models used to assess the compliance of technical parameters of quarry railway transport with planned work volumes are related to the complexity of considering the specifics of quarry technological processes and the relatively low accuracy of the obtained estimates. Specifically, these models do not sufficiently account for the integer nature of quarry railway transport operation tasks and the dependence of equipment downtime on the transport system's load level. As a result of the research, methods have been developed to assess the available and required processing capacity of loading and unloading fronts. These methods, unlike existing ones, account for the need to withdraw rolling stock to locomotive crew change points. Using methods from railway operation theory, the analytical methods for assessing transportation between loading and unloading fronts have been improved by meticulously considering locomotive-consist speed limits. In cases where a loading point is strictly assigned to an unloading point, downtime can be determined by constructing Gantt charts. If loaded wagons arrive at an unloading front from several loading fronts, or empty wagons arrive at a loading front from several unloading fronts, the downtime of locomotive-consists waiting for freight operations will be a random variable and can be determined using methods from queuing theory. To reduce transportation time, the task of assigning unloading points to loading points has been formalized. Based on the conducted research, an improved method for calculating the required fleet of electric and diesel locomotive-consists for transportation has been proposed. Originality. The originality of this study lies in improving the analytical modeling methods for quarry railway transport operations by accounting for the integer nature of the tasks and using queuing theory methods to estimate downtime while waiting for freight operations. Practical value. The practical value of the results is that they allow designers and technologists to speed up the search for viable solutions and reduce the number of stages of graphical or simulation modeling, which require significant time and resource expenditures.