Hlulani Rikhotso investigated how maintenance strategies for underground hard-rock equipment could be improved using operating and fault evidence. The goal was an approach that performed better in terms of availability, reliability and dependable equipment operation.
Research focus
The study concentrated primarily on load-haul-dump equipment. It brought together maintenance strategy, fault data and fatigue-life analysis so that interventions could be evaluated against the way equipment actually degrades in service.
This placed the work between engineering analysis and asset-management decision support: the technical model had to explain failure behaviour, but its value depended on helping a mine choose when and how to maintain critical equipment.
Programme record
The part-time MEng formed part of RAMMS’s maintenance-optimisation portfolio and was supervised by Johann Wannenburg. Hlulani’s studies were discontinued at the end of the first quarter of 2026 before completion of the dissertation. The profile is retained as a record of the research contribution and its place in the programme’s development.