Study on Mine Equipment Systems Combined with a Reliability Assessment Model

This thesis discusses a methodology involving the merging of a reliability assessment model based on genetic algorithms with simulation. The purpose of the simulation study in this thesis is to assess the impact of equipment failures to mine production throughput. Two simulation models are developed using different simulation tools. The end results demonstrate a successful application of the methodology to study the impact of equipment failure on a mine pruduction. There is potential for future research involving methodology developed in this thesis. Logically,the next undertaking would be to incorporate failure patterns for all equipment. A second future direction is to incorporate other predictive models into the methodology and study and compare the results with the genetic algorithm model presented in this thesis.