International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 23 (2013) 771775

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International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmst

Reliability-based maintenance scheduling of hydraulic system of rotary

drilling machines
Mohammad Javad Rahimdel a,, Mohammad Ataei b, Reza Khalokakaei b, Seyed Hadi Hoseinie c
a

Faculty of Mining Engineering, Sahand University of Technology, Tabriz 51335-1996, Iran

Faculty of Mining Engineering, Geophysics and Petroleum, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood 36155-316, Iran
c
Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Lulea S-971 87, Sweden
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 December 2012
Received in revised form 13 January 2013
Accepted 9 February 2013
Available online 31 August 2013
Keywords:
Reliability
Drilling
Hydraulic
Maintenance

a b s t r a c t
Hydraulic system has a critical and important role in drilling machines. Any failure in this system leads to
problems in power system and machine operation. Since the failure cannot be prevented entirely, it is
important to minimize its probability. Reliability is one of the most efcient and important method to
study safe operation probability of hydraulic systems. In this research, the reliability of hydraulic system
of four rotary drilling machines in Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine in Iran has been analyzed. The data analysis
shows that the time between failures (TBF) of Machines A and C obey the Weibull (2P) and Weibull (3P)
distribution, respectively. Also, the TBF of Machines B and D obey the lognormal distribution. With regard
to reliability plots of hydraulic systems, preventive reliability-based maintenance time intervals for 80%
reliability levels for machines in this system are 10 h.
2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.

1. Introduction
Nowadays, rotary blasthole drilling machines were used in surface mines and in large size quarries for drilling the soft and medium-hard formations. Generally, these machines consist of ve
main subsystems, as shown in Fig. 1.
Only a hydraulic system is capable for generating the linear motion with very high pressure required for such operations, such as
mast raising/lowering and leveling the machine by hydraulic jacks.
Also, in many drilling machines, hydraulic system supplies highpressure hydraulic oil to many hydraulic motors to generate rotary
motion. So, in this machine, hydraulic system has a critical role and
considering its failure rate and the reliability is essential. Major
items of hydraulic system are hydraulic reservoirs, lters, pumps,
tubing, valves, motors, cylinders, etc. The functions of components
in hydraulic system of drilling machines include the following
items [1,2].
(1). Tower raising cylinder
The mast is raised and lowered by means of two hydraulic cylinders. Mast cylinders are often hydraulically extended and
mechanically locked so the longer xed length gives necessary
rigidity to the mast.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 4113444311.

E-mail address: mj.rahimdel@yahoo.com (M.J. Rahimdel).

(2). Jack cylinder

A rotary blasthole machines equipped with four leveling jacks.
Therefore, the blasthole drilling machines must be equipped with
four hydraulic jacks, unless a very compelling reason exists. This
is particularly important in the case of a rotary blasthole drilling
machines, because it has a very heavy mast, pipe changer and heavy drill head. All these assemblies take the center of gravity of the
rotary blasthole drilling machines to a higher level.
(3). Rod changer
In blasthole drilling machines, after the addition of a drill rod to
drill string and its removal and drilling a blasthole to the desired
depth, the extra drill rod is to be added. For this reason, almost
blasthole machines have an arrangement for storing additional
drill rods in the mast, using hydraulic ranch, and mechanically
joining them to the drill string. This mechanism is called a rod
changer.
(4). Proper motor
On one side of the drill crawler, a sprocket is mounted. The
sprocket is also called a drive tumbler. A sprocket has many teeth.
These teeth interlock with the track pads. When the sprocket is rotated, the track pads are forced to move. The rotary motion to the
sprockets is imparted by means of a high torque hydraulic motor
that is known as proper motor.

2095-2686/$ - see front matter 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2013.08.023

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M.J. Rahimdel et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 23 (2013) 771775

Hydraulic
system

Electrical
system

Pneumatic
system

Transmission
system

Drilling
system

Fig. 1. Block diagram of rotating drilling machine.

(5). Oil cooler

In hydraulic-electric drilling machines, the compressor needs a
cooler. The cooler is equipped with a bypass valve to divert oil
around the core when the oil is cold. The oil pressure in this condition will be higher than normal. As oil temperature reaches a
normal operation rate, the bypass valve closes and forces the oil
to go through the core.
(6). Rotary head
The rotary head of a blasthole drilling machines rotates the drill
string and exerts feed force on the drill bit through the drill string.
The rotary head is fabricated in the form of a box from steel plates.
Power to the rotary head is given by hydraulic motors. Trains of
gears drive, the main spindle at highly reduced speed and increased torque. The drill string is attached to the lower end of
the spindle. The upper end is attached to the air hose through a
built-in swivel.
(7). Main pumps
The main pumps are closed-loop hydrostatic transmission package pumps. Loop basically means the complete path of hoses, tting, valves, motors, and other components which the oil ows
through the pump and comes back to it. Rotary drilling machines
in Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine have two main pumps that supply
enough energy to drill string rotation, propel left track and leveling
jacks.
(8). Double pumps
The double pump is a two section xed displacement vane type
pump. Double pump circuit performs all of the tasks associated
with the actual drilling process except rotation, drill feed, tower
rising and jack operation. Some of these tasks are rod handling,
hoisting, dust control and oil cooling. The components of double
pump circuit are the pumps, motors, cylinders, lters, coolers
and valves needed to perform the drilling functions.
(9). Feed pump
Feed pump is a pump that supplies auxiliary operations such as
mast raising/lowering, mast brace, carousel rotation, hydraulic
spanner in/out, breakout wrench in/out, breakout wrench lock,
breakout wrench rotation, hydraulic oil cooling, water injection
pump, oil injection pump, auxiliary winch, radiator cooling fan,
other auxiliary operations and cable reel winding.

data for reliability analysis of their hydraulic system. Then, with regard to achieved reliability plots, preventive maintenance time has
been calculated. The decomposition of hydraulic system of studied
drilling machines is shown in Fig. 2.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Reliability analysis
Reliability is the probability of failure in functions of equipment
and processes when they are operating correctly in a given time
interval under stated conditions. The mathematical denition of
reliability is presented by Eq. (1) [3].

Rt 1  Ft 1 

f xdx

where R(t) is the reliability at time t; F(t) the cumulative failure distribution function; and f(x) the failure probability density function.
Since the assumption of independent and identically distribution (IID) for collected data is normally not valid, validation of
the IID of the TBF and TTR data before modeling is essential. Trend
test and serial correlation test are two common methods used to
validate the IID assumption. The trend test is down with graphical
and analytical methods. Graphical method involves plotting the
cumulative failure number against cumulative time between failures. If there is any trend in data, non-homogenous Poisson process
(NHPP) is used for modeling. In analytical method, the test suggested in MIL-HDBK-189 analyzes the data sets for the presence
of trend by calculating the test statistic as the following Eq. (2) [4].

U2

n1
X

lnT n =T i

i1

where the data are the failure truncated at the nth failure at time Tn.
Under the null hypothesis of a homogeneous Poisson process,
the test statistic U is chi-squared distributed with 2(n  1) degrees
of freedom.
The presence of serial correlation can be examined by plotting
the ith TBF against (i  1)th TBF. If the plotted points are randomly
scattered without any pattern, it can be interpreted that the TBF
date sets are free from serial correlation [57]. If there are no trend

Hydraulic system

Cylinder

Motors

Pumps

Dust collector

(10). Dust collector

Rotary blasthole drilling machines ush the hole by compressed
air. Dust controls arrangement of the blasthole machine to minimize pollution. The basic operation of any lter dust control system is hydraulic and the basic components of this part of the
machine are hydraulic motor, valves, lters, vibrators and dust
certain.
In this research, four rotary drilling machines of Sarcheshmeh
Copper Mine in Iran have been selected as the case study to collect

Tower rising

Propel

Main Pumps

Leveling jack

Oil cooler

Double pumps

Rod changer

Rotary head

Feed pump
Water injection

Fig. 2. Decomposition of hydraulic system of drilling machines.

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Time hazard or depended

failure fate (t)

M.J. Rahimdel et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 23 (2013) 771775

Burn-in period

Wear -out period

Useful life period

Time t
Fig. 3. Bathtub failure rate curve [1].

and serial correlation in data, it means that data are IID and therefore classic statistical methods can be used for modeling.
The total number of failures within an item population, divided
by the total time, expended by that population, during a particular
measurement interval under stated conditions is dened as failure
rate.
The failure rate, k(t), at time t is calculated by Eq. (3) [8].

f t
kt
Rt

2.2. Failure rate

For reliability analysis of engineering systems, it is often assumed that the hazard or time-dependent failure rate of items follows the shape of a bathtub curve (Fig. 3) with three main phases:

burn-in, useful life and wear-out. Some of the reasons for the
occurrence of failures during burn-in phase are poor manufacturing methods and procedures, poor debugging, poor workmanship
and substandard materials, inadequate processes and human error
[8].
During the useful life phase, the item hazard rate remains constant with respect to the time. Some of the main reasons for the
occurrence of failures during this phase are undetectable defects,
higher random stress than expected, abuse, low safety factors,
and human error [9,10].
During the wear-out phase, the item hazard rate increases with
the time. Some of the principal reasons for occurrence of failures
during this phase are inadequate maintenances, wear due to aging,
wear due to friction, short designed-in life of items, wrong overhaul practices, corrosion and creep [9,10].
3. Reliability analysis: a case study
3.1. Data collection and analysis
For reliability analysis and maintenance management, the failure data of hydraulic systems of all four drilling machines (named,
A, B, C and D) in Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine have been collected
over a period of 2 years which exactly had stared after a general
overhauling of the drilling machines. The data collection was
started. Then the time between failures (TBF) have been calculated.
The data set was also analyzed for the presence of trend by
using the MIL-HDBK-189 Test. The computed values of the test statistic (Eq. (2)) for available TBF data are given in Table 1. According
to Table 1, analytical method shows that the data have no trend.

Table 1
Computed value of the test statistic U for TBF.
Number of failure

Degree of freedom

Calculated statistic U

Rejection of null hypothesis at 5% level of signicance

Modeling method

48
100
101
153

94
198
200
304

96.78
143.20
270.22
296.56

Not
Not
Not
Not

Renewal
Renewal
Renewal
Renewal

rejected
rejected
rejected
rejected

600

700

500

600
ith TBFs (h)

ith TBFs (h)

Machine
A
B
C
D

400
300
200
100
0

500
400
300
200
100

100

200

300

400

500

600

600

700

500

600
ith TBFs (h)

ith TBFs (h)

(i-1)th TBFs of Machine A (h)

400
300
200
100
0

(>33.14)
(>77.9)
(>78.74)
(>124.14)

100 200 300 400 500 600

(i-1)th TBFs of Machine B (h)

500
400
300
200
100

100 200 300 400 500

(i-1)th TBFs of Machine C (h)

600

100 200 300 400 500 600 700

(i-1)th TBFs of Machine D (h)

Fig. 4. Results of serial correlation test.

process
process
process
process

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M.J. Rahimdel et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 23 (2013) 771775

The serial correlation test (Fig. 4) shows that the data are correlation-free and therefore, the data of mentioned machines are IID. So,
renewal process techniques can be used for reliability modeling.
3.2. Reliability analysis
Data analysis and nding the best-tted distributions are down
using Easy Fit software. The KolmogorovSmirnov (KS) test has
been used for selecting the best distributions for reliability analysis. In the result of data analysis, ve top tted and best-tted distributions are illustrated in Table 2. Eqs. (4)(7) show the achieved
reliability models and reliability plots of all drilling machines
which are illustrated in Fig. 5.

 
a 

0:671 !
tc
t  0:625
exp 
RMachA t exp 
79:98
b
!
Z t
1
1
Lnt  l2
RMachB t p
exp
dt
2r2
2pr 0 t
!
Z t
1
Lnt  3:2152
dt
exp
0:317
4:99
0 t

3.3. Failure analysis

  a 

0:865 !
t
t
exp 
RMachC t exp 
b
59:017

!
Z t
1
1
Lnt  l2
dt
RMachD t p
exp
2r 2
2pr 0 t
!
Z t
1
Lnt  3:422
0:348
exp
dt
3:43
0 t

Table 2
Best-t distribution for TBF data sets.
Distribution

Machine A
KS test

Machine B
KS test

Machine C
KS test

Machine D
KS test

Exponential
Weibul-2P
Weibul-3P
Lognormal
Gen-gamma
Gamma
Best distribution
Parameters

0.0212
0.0859
0.0775
0.1186
0.0923
0.0787
Weibul-3P
a = 0.671
b = 79.98
c = 0.625

0.2159
0.0785
0.0848
0.0526
0.1243
0.1919
Lognormal
r = 1.58
l = 3.215

0.1352
0.0489
0.0694
0.0751
0.1203
0.1379
Weibul-2P
a = 0.865
b = 59.017

0.1236
0.0646
0.0757
0.0466
0.1017
0.1725
Lognormal
r = 1.309
l = 3.42

Hydraulic system reliability (%)

After reliability modeling, a failure rate analysis was carried out

to investigate the failure potential and age condition of studied
systems. First, the failure rate function of each machine was driven
using the reliability and failure density functions (Eq. (3)). Then,
the failure rate curve of each machine was plotted using the mentioned equations, as illustrated in Fig. 6. As can be seen, in the Machine A, 1000 h was dened as burn-in time. The failure rate of
hydraulic system in this machine starts from around 0.0135 and
decreases to 0.0035 at the end of the burn-in time. After 1000 h,
the failure rate decreases with very low rate and approaching to
be constant.
The hydraulic system of Machine B has a failure rate of 0.032
initially and, then, the failure rate decreases rapidly and reaches
0.004 after 600 h. At this time, the useful life of the system starts
and the failure rate and maintains an almost constant level at
approximately 0.002. However, the initial failure rate of Machine
B is higher than other machines, but this hydraulic system of this
machine is seems to be more stable than others in its lifecycle. In
Machine C, the failure rate varies from 0.025 to 0.01. The burn-in
time of this system is around 660 h and after that time the failure
rate remains in a constant level. In Machine D, the failure rate of
hydraulic system starts from around 0.0265 and decreases to
0.002 at the end of the studied time period. High percent of the
reduction belongs to the rst 100 h.
In total, according to failure rate plots, the hydraulic systems of
all machines enter to their useful life periods approximately after
600 h. It is a considerable result that the studied machines have
very close failure behavior which is emphasized by the similar reliability plots.
4. Maintenance scheduling

1.0
0.9

Machine A
Machine B
Machine C
Machine D

0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

The analysis shows that the reliability of hydraulic system of Machines A, B and D reached to approximately zero after 600 h of operation, nevertheless, Machine C reaches to this value after 400 h of
operation. According to the reliability plots, the Machine A has
the highest reliability level during the all operation period. Also,
only after 10 h operation of drilling machines, reliability of hydraulic system of Machines A, C and D, reached to 80%. Reliability of
hydraulic system of Machine C will be reached to 74% at 10 h operation. Machines B and C have very similar reliability behavior. As
shown in Fig. 5, before 140 h of operation, the reliability of systems
are ranked as: A, C, D and B. At this time, the reliability of hydraulic
system of Machines B, C, and D will be equal and reached to approximately 11%. After 140 h, the reliability of hydraulic system of Machine C will be lower than Machines B and D. After 500 h
continuous operation, all of the active Machines (A, B and D) are
continued to work with very low and similar reliability level.

25

50

75

100 125
Time (h)

150

175

200

Fig. 5. Reliability plots of the hydraulic systems of studied machines.

In mining projects, one of the best ways to provide a smooth

operation is to keep the whole system and its components at a high
level of reliability and availability. The reliability-based preventive
maintenance seems to be the best policy to keep the system
reliability at an acceptable level. In this approach, the preventive
maintenance intervals, estimated by the reliability model, are used
to get the desired performance and operational reliability.
Preventive maintenance (PM) regularly consists of scheduled
inspection, adjustments, cleaning, lubrication, parts replacement,
calibration, and repair of components and equipment. PM schedules periodic inspection and maintenance at pre-dened intervals
(time, operating hours, or cycles) attempt to reduce equipment
failure. It is performed without considering equipment condition
[11].

775

0.0135
0.0120
0.0105
0.0090
0.0075
0.0060
0.0045
0.0030
0.0015

0.035
0.030
Failure rate (n/h)

Failura rate (n/h)

M.J. Rahimdel et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 23 (2013) 771775

0.015
0.010
0.005

300

600
900
1200
Time (h)
(a) Time of Machine A (h)

1500

0.030

0.030

0.025

0.025
Failure ratr (n/h)

Failure rate (n/h)

0.025
0.020

0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005

300

600
900
1200
Time (h)
(b) Time of Machine B (h)

1500

0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005

300

600
900
Time (h)
(c) Time of Machine C (h)

1200

300

600
900
Time (h)
(d) Time of Machine D (h)

1200

Fig. 6. Failure rate curve of hydraulic system of studied drilling machines.

Table 3
Preventive maintenance intervals for reliability level of 80%.
Machine

Preventive maintenance interval (h)

9.15

7.49

10.43

10.15

In this paper, the desired level of reliability of hydraulic system

of studied machines was allocated at 80% for the scheduling preventive maintenance. Therefore, all systems should be checked
and serviced in a xed interval schedule in order to achieve a good
and reliable operation. By using the reliability plots of Fig. 5, the
reliability-based preventive maintenance time intervals for
hydraulic system of drilling machines in Sarchshmeh Mine were
calculated and presented in Table 3. According to Table 3, to have
a good, reliable operation and optimizing the maintenance schedule, it is suggested that the hydraulic system of drilling machines
in Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine should be checked and serviced
every 10 h operation.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, the reliability of hydraulic system of drilling machines in Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine in Iran was analyzed. At the
rst stage, the data analysis showed that the time between failure
are free from trend and serial correlation, thus, the renewal process
was used for reliability analysis. The TBF data of Machines A, B, C
and D obeys Weibull (3P), Lognormal, Weibull (2P) and lognormal
distributions respectively. The analysis showed that four studied
machines have very similar reliability plots and failure behavior.
In all of them, the hydraulic system has reductive failure rate
and they have entered to their useful life period after approximately 600 h. According to reliability analysis, the reliability-based

maintenance interval for 80% reliability level is 10 h. This means

that hydraulic system of machines must be checked and inspected
every 10 h.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the R & D center of Iranian National Copper
Company for its nancial support. The kind help of the drilling ofce and workshop of Sarcheshmeh Copper Mine is also
acknowledged.
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