Accidental risk assessment in mineral processing automation

Automated and automatic control takes an important part of operation of processing factories as it enhances production safety and efficiency, reduces the environmental impact and optimizes utilization of mineral resources. For this reason, when identifying hazards and assessing risks toward safety of production processes, it is necessary to take into account the availability and operability of automated and automatic control systems. This study identifies risks intrinsic to all automated operations in mineral processing, as well as risk peculiar to individual processes of crushing, milling, flotation and drying. The revealed risks are connected with technical aspects of operation, organizational culture and personnel’s psychology of a mineral processing factory. Based on the functional charts of automation, the fault trees are plotted for the processes of crushing, milling and flotation. The list of risky events is given; it is composed using a fault tree. With the help of the matrix method, the risk assessment is carried out and the level of industrial safety is determined. The implemented analysis shows that during automation of mineral processing operations, it is important to pay attention to the availability of systems of automatic load transfer in case of equipment and program failures, or loss of power. The recommendations are given for the risk minimization in automation of mineral processing operations.

Zinovieva O. M., Merkulova A. M., Smirnova N. A., Chadin D. A. Accidental risk assessment in mineral processing automation. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2025;(5):156-168. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2025_5_0_156.

O.M. Zinovieva¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, e-mail: ozinovieva@yandex.ru,
A.M. Merkulova¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, e-mail: anna-merkulova@yandex.ru,
N.A. Smirnova¹, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor, e-mail: natalyaas@bk.ru,
D.A. Chadin¹, Student, e-mail: chadindmitriy08072000@mail.ru,
¹ NUST MISIS, 119049, Moscow, Russia.

A.M. Merkulova, e-mail: anna-merkulova@yandex.ru.

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