Health risk of whole body vibration in mining trucks during various operational conditions

Mining machineries are generally exposed to intensive vibrations in harsh mining environment. If vibrations are beyond the tolerable limit, the machine and its operator health will be under the risk. In this work, the vibration of a mining truck at different operational conditions are simulated and discussed. To achieve this aim, three haul roads with low, medium and poor qualities are considered based on the ISO standard. Accordingly, the vibration of a mining truck in different speeds, payload and distribution qualities of materials in the dump body are evaluated in each haul road quality using Trucksim software. The simulation results with statistical discussions indicate that the truck speed and the materials distribution quality have significant effects on the root mean square (RMS) of vertical vibrations. However, the effect of the payload is not considerable on the RMS. Moreover, the accumulation of materials on the rear side of the truck dump body is efficient on the vibrational health risk.