Drone surveying in mining
Eloise McMinn Mitchell, Flyability
MINES around the world must follow strict safety protocols to protect their employees on their sites, be it an open-pit site or an underground excavation. Mine safety begins with the proper inspection and maintenance of the equipment in use.
Culverts in mines act as a conduit for liquids, moving water from one side of a road or area to the other. They can serve the dual purpose of drainage as well as structural support. If a culvert gives way, it can cause subsidence or even a landslide depending on its location. Thus, culvert maintenance is an important task.
As culverts are underground, they can be difficult to inspect. Some only have one access point before they meet further pipe infrastructure, making a traditional or manual inspection difficult.
Mines around the world must follow strict safety protocols to protect their employees on their sites, be it an open-pit site or an underground excavation.
Inspectors have used the Elios 3 as a tool for accessing dangerous and complex culverts. It provides a safer data collection method than sending someone inside and the confined-space drone can move freely through the asset whether there is stagnant water or not, which can be an obstacle to floating inspection apparatus or crawlers.
Culvert inspection
The client, Azure Integrity, is an industrial drone service provider based in Adelaide, Australia. As previous users of the Elios 2 drone, the Elios 3 drone is now used on multiple sites across the region to inspect major assets ranging from mining equipment to the interiors of railway infrastructure.
One example site included a major open-cut mining area in Queensland where it used the drone to conduct a culvert inspection. It had never been analysed before using drones, but the mine owners wanted to enhance on-site safety as recent mining accidents have increased global awareness about the necessity of culvert maintenance.
It had never been analysed before using drones, but the mine owners wanted to enhance on-site safety as recent mining accidents have increased global awareness about the necessity of culvert maintenanceThe culvert being inspected was 80m long, with a height of 3.5m and a width of 1.5m (262, 11, and 5 feet respectively).
An energy breaker on the upstream side meant the space at one end would be too small to be accessed by a person wearing breathing apparatus and could not support crawlers due to water build up.
The water level was also unknown, which prevented the use of a floating visual inspection. The desired output was a visual inspection of the culvert using the Elios 3’s cameras.
Adaptation
Once on-site, the client deployed the drone, moving over stagnant water inside the culvert. An unexpected challenge met the team 50m (164ft) into the culvert – the drone was suddenly challenged by a family of bats. Despite the efforts of the pilot to guide the bats to the exit, the bats did not want to leave the dark space in daylight.
On this open-cut mine in Queensland, the client was able to access a new area of the site, improving safety for individual inspection personnel by using a drone while also helping the overall site safety be improved. Even the bats were able to return undisturbed to their home after the culvert inspection.The solution was to complete the inspection using the drone’s 16,000 lumens at night when the bats would be out hunting meaning the culvert would be free of its inhabitants. The drone pilot could then complete the visual inspection of the culvert from 50m to the final 30m (98ft) of the total 80m space.
Using Flyability’s companion software, Inspector 4, the engineer could view the results of the flight to evaluate the structural integrity of the culvert. This would allow them to plan maintenance.
Results
Using a drone provides flexibility and mobility and is just one of several benefits of using indoor drones for mining operations.
On this open-cut mine in Queensland, the client was able to access a new area of the site, improving safety for individual inspection personnel by using a drone while also helping the overall site safety be improved. Even the bats were able to return undisturbed to their home after the culvert inspection.
This workflow has proven the merit of drone mine inspections on this site, as well as the quality of results gathered by the client’s pilots. Moving forwards, they can continue to assist mine owners and other industrial site operators to improve safety, save time, and adapt to the individual needs of their work.
Eloise McMinn Mitchell, Flyability