MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

MinE 424 Project Management in Mining

Handout Assignment01

1. The water supply for a mine comes from three different sources. Pipelines of the Source-1
(1) and the Source-2 (2) are jointed and the water is conveyed with a single pipeline (4) for a
while. Then, pipeline (4) is jointed with the pipeline (3) coming from the Source-3 and a single
pipeline (5) is used to convey the cumulative water to the mining area. If the failure
probabilities of pipelines (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5) for a period of time are estimated as 0.95, 0.98,
0.91, 0.85, and 0.80, estimate the probabilities of i) water shortage and ii) no water shortage in
the mining area.

2. Water for the processing plant in a mine is provided from three different sources. Source-1,
source-2, and source-3 can provide water to the plant with the success rates of 80%, 75%, and
90%, respectively. Assume that if only one of the sources succeeds, the probability to meet the
water requirement of plant would be 60%. If any two or more sources manage to prove the
water, 100% of the requirement is met. In case that the water requirement is not satisfied, what
is the probability that source-2 and source-3 fail together? Note that there is not any partial
water flow from the sources in case of failure/success. Note: This water supply system is
different from the system given in Q1. Therefore, do not consider the figure above when
solving Q2.