Structural Safety Assessment of Shaft Steelwork – A Review

shaft steelwork is a component of critical infrastructure in underground mines. it connects the min - ing areas to the surface and enables the transport of personnel, equipment, and raw materials. its failure or malfunction poses a threat to people and causes economic losses. Shaft steelwork is an exceptional engineering structure exposed to dynamic loads from large masses moving at high speeds and is subject to intensive deterioration resulting from corrosion and geological or mining-induced deformations. These issues cause shaft steelwork to be subject to high structural safety requirements, design oversizing, demanding maintenance procedures, and costly replacement of corroded members. The importance and unique working conditions of shaft steelwork create practical design and maintenance problems that are of interest to engineers and scientists. This paper reviews publications on the structural safety of rigid shaft steelwork and summarises the range of research from the detection of guide rail failures through the assessment of load effects and guide resistance, to the evaluation of structural reliability. The effects of guide rail failures on guiding forces, models of the conveyance-steelwork interaction, the load-carrying capacity of shaft steelwork under advanced corrosion, and the probabilistic assessment of structural reliability are presented. Significant advances in understanding the mechanical behaviour of shaft steelwork and assessing its properties have been reported. This review summarises the current state of research on shaft steelwork structural safety and highlights key future development directions.