Safety bunds are some of the most common structures in a quarry, and Stevenson and Fulton Hogan have worked to improve them through science.
These physical barriers are primarily built around areas that store hazardous liquids and are designed to prevent the spread of leaks.
However, these bunds are often raised several metres from the ground, so care must be taken around them.
When a subcontractor tragically passed away following a safety bund accident at the Stevenson Auckland quarry in March 2020, Stevenson and Fulton Hogan knew they had to take a proactive approach to keep their employees safe.
The two companies, partnering with the University of Newcastle, invested in a research project to look at the science behind bund design in quarries.
“At the outset, it wasn’t clear how effective the bunds were at keeping our people safe and we wanted to understand what could be done differently or better to prevent similar accidents from happening in the future,” Stevenson general manager Ben Hussey said.
“We looked at what factors affected bund effectiveness and the safety controls we could change or improve in our quarries like truck speed to reduce accidents and harm to our people.”
University of Newcastle associate professor Klaus Thoeni jumped on board to help with the project.
In 2021, with Thoeni’s help, the team put together a full-scale testing drive to record even the smallest of details of bund safety.
Thoeni designed the project and managed the advanced numerical model, which crunched the numbers and ran thousands of scenarios for around three months with a supercomputer at The University of Newcastle.
This intensive computational effort provided detailed insights and robust data that were crucial for the project’s success.
“We wanted the research to be as thorough as possible so working with some other big operators meant the outcomes could be applicable to all quarries in New Zealand,” Fulton Hogan national quarry manager Peter Walsh said.
The project successfully wrapped up in early 2023, with the last step being to put the learnings and standard into action.
“Our teams now have a simple matrix to follow when designing, building and maintaining bunds in their quarry,” Walsh said.
WorkSafe has now disseminated the research within their inspection teams so the findings can be incorporated into their work with quarries around the country. For Fulton Hogan and Stevenson, the findings have been used to develop a functional standard to be applied across all quarries.
Reflecting on the project and new standards, Hussey explained that the team wanted to take a step back and apply some rigour using numerical simulations, which has been a ground-breaking piece of research in New Zealand that can be applied practically in other quarries.
“We’ve achieved what we set out to do – to know how we can design, build and maintain safety bunds to stop dump trucks going over the edge in our quarries,” he said.•
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