Investigation of variation in oil sand properties via analysis of seismic and on-board truck data

• Author / Creator

  Kakan, Marjan

• The ever increasing size of mining equipment has caused many instability concerns both on board and in the ground underneath. This highlights the need for more in-depth knowledge of variation in the properties of the ground as it has direct influence on the durability and life span of mining equipment. Since laboratory scale tests on the ground material samples provide limited information, gaining field information from on-site underfoot material provides greater detail. The purpose of this research is to analyse the results obtained from two sets of on-site measurements to predict the variation of ground stiffness as a haul truck travels over it. The first data set are the results of seismic measurements using an array of 72 geophones placed along a mining haul road. As the truck travels along this array, the geophones collect the signals due to the motion of truck. Upon application of appropriate frequency filters to remove noise signals from the original seismic data, the shear modulus and load stiffness of the oil sand close to each geophone can be determined via surface wave methods.
  The second set of data was obtained from the on-board truck system also known as VIMS (Vital Information Management System). Of the numerous parameters in a VIMS data, we used strut pressures and truck speed in our analysis. Before performing any comparison between VIMS and seismic, the drift in the time frame the two data sets was calculated and corrected. The output signal of a geophone can be considered a direct measurement of a particle velocity. These values were used to obtain the deformation of the ground by integrating the area underneath the seismic peak. The analysis of VIMS data resulted in a stiffness value in the range of 2-10 MN/m. The seismic analysis resulted in a stiffness range of 5-70 MN/m. The two methods also predicted similar shape trends in variation of ground stiffness along the geophone arrays. The predicted stiffness values are relatively in agreement with the reported values of 10 MN/m for a softened oil sand.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Seismic analysis
  • Ground stiffness
  • Haul truck
  • Oil sands
  • Mining

• Graduation date

  Fall 2014

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3W37M27B

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.