Modeling and Exploitation Load Tests of the Suspended Route Slings Caused by Passage of the Locomotive at Various Speed along Mining Excavation

Despite the fact that suspended monorails have been used in the mining industry for over 50 years it is necessary to continue research on the possibilities of increasing the unit mass of the transported load or the speed of people transport. The first step is to establish the exact dynamic load of suspended route’ elements and compare this value with easy to calculation static load. The objective of the research was to determine the influence of speed and direction of travel on maximum load force applied to the sling of the route in mining excavation. The research results indicated that the speed of 2 ms−1 does not significantly influence the load on the sling. Theoretical hypothesis, stating that the estimation of the force value in the sling ought to be performed using projecting on a surface perpendicular to the route was confirmed. It was also proven that in order to characterize the geometry of the sling as well as a precise analysis of its load it is necessary to employ the length and the angle of the chain in relation to the above mentioned surface. Upon employing statistical analysis of the test results, the maximum dynamic effect of the locomotive passing was determined to be 20.1 ± 2.5% of the value of the calculated static load for all slings, projected onto a plane perpendicular to the route. For a single sling, mounted on a test route section inclined at an angle of about 10°, the increase in force due to the passage of the locomotive was up to 21.0% of the static load for this sling.