Recent advances in automated visual rope inspection

This paper will describe recent advances in automated visual rope inspection for double drum and friction winders that provides 360° rope inspection at full speed. In many jurisdictions, daily visual rope inspections are carried out to meet regulatory requirements. These visual inspections are generally done at slow speed in order to give the rope inspector an opportunity to detect possible rope defects. During manual inspection, for safety reasons it is common practice for the mine to suspend muck hoisting activities. This paper will describe an automated double drum visual rope inspection system installed at Xstrata Copper Kidd mine in Timmins Canada. It will describe how the system was installed, the problems encountered and the benefits the mine expects to achieve as a result of using the system. This paper will also point to how the installed technology might be adapted to friction winders.

Author(s): A. Young and B. Delaney