Elnaz Siami-Irdemoosa

• Doctor of Philosophy
• PhD at Missouri University of Science and Technology

A work breakdown structure (WBS) can prove to be pivotal to successful project management planning. There are few published studies about the methodologies or tools to develop the appropriate WBS for a project, and those that are available are limited to the specific areas of construction such as apartment-building construction and boiler manufactu...

Ease of excavation or rippability, also called diggability or excavatibility, is a critical decision-making parameter in the selection of both the overburden removal method and the required equipment in surface mining and geotechnical engineering projects. The most widely used method of estimating rippability is rock mass classification. Although t...

Off-road-truck-related accidents are a major cause of considerable losses in the US surface mining industry. Though the rates of fatalities, permanent disabilities and other injuries have shown decreasing trends in the past decade, the associated lost lives and working days are far from a “zero work place accident policy” in this industry. After id...

Introduction: Off-road trucks are one of the major sources of equipment-related accidents in the U.S. mining industries. A systematic analysis of all off-road truck-related accidents, injuries, and illnesses, which are reported and published by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), is expected to provide practical insights for identify...

Electric and hydraulic shovels are the dominant loading machinery in surface mining operations. Despite their critical role in production and their high capital and operating costs, no reliable and comprehensive quantitative performance metric is available. In this paper, a stochastic shovel effectiveness (SSE) measure is proposed for the purpose o...

Discrete event simulation is a stochastic mathematical modeling tool with applications in queuing systems. Many mining operations, both surface and underground, can be simulated in the context of queuing theory , for example open pit loading and haulage operation, underground level and vertical transportation, and mineral processing circuits. A com...

The shear behavior of a single rock joint in limestone specimens, under a constant normal load (CNL), was analyzed in this study. Test specimens with different asperity roughness were prepared and tested. The Goodman model of a rock joint shear behavior, under CNL, was modified to render a better representation of the data obtained. The model appli...

The shear behavior of a single rock joint in limestone specimens, under a constant normal load (CNL), was analyzed in this study. Test specimens with different asperity roughness were prepared and tested. The Goodman model of a rock joint shear behavior, under CNL, was modified to render a better representation of the data obtained. The model appli...

The high ownership cost of mining equipment mean that downtimes are expensive and should be avoided with smart and efficient maintenance planning. Modern mines have large data sets on equipment performance and reliability, from dispatch and manufacturer health monitoring systems, that can be mined for more efficient maintenance planning. This study...

Conventionally, many researchers have used both regression and black box techniques to estimate the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of different rocks. The advantage of the regression approach is that it can be used to render a functional relationship between the predictive rock indices and its UCS. The advantage of the black box techniques i...

Pareto analysis was used to investigate the failures database of a Hitachi EX1900 hydraulic shovel over one year of continuous operation. The hydraulic system and hydraulic links, hoses and piping were identified as the most critical system and subsystem, respectively. A three-parameter gamma distribution function was identified as the best fit for...

Cable/hydraulic shovels are the main loading machinery in surface mining operations. Excellent knowledge of reliability, maintainability, and mechanical availability of shovels is a critical issue in mine planning, safety, and economics. In this study, the reliability of a hydraulic shovel was investigated through analysis of the number of failures...

Tunneling are essentially infrastructure projects that include many interfered and sophisticated tasks. More effective and efficient management of tunneling projects is an important need in an era of reduced funding and dramatically increasing public expectations. The management of tunneling projects must deal with many inputs, conditions and varia...

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is one of the most vital planning processes of the project management. But there are few researches on the methods or tools to design WBS in tunneling projects. In this paper, a framework which employs neural network to plan the work breakdown structure of tunneling projects is proposed. We have implemented the equiva...