Rapid Coal Production System for Low Seam Applications

Research output: ThesisDoctoral Thesis

Authors

Abstract

The permanent pressure from the world economy to increase the hard coal production and to maximize the profitability is forcing the supplier of mining equipment to develop new and innovative concepts for the underground coal mining industry. The main objective of the author was to develop a mining system which was able to reduce the costs for the mining process to the absolute minimum by using only as few as possible personnel, using as few as possible auxiliary equipment, reducing the strata control measurements to the bare minimum and to utilize the equipment in the most efficient way. Intensive and careful market research was performed by the author. All conventional mining methods got analyzed. None of the existing mining systems was able to do the job in the required way. The so called Rapid Coal Production System for Low Seam Applications invented and developed by the author was coming out of a Research and Development program of the SANDVIK Mining and Construction sector of Sandvik AB. The state of the art principles from the coal mining industry were combined with innovative new developments into a completely new and innovative constellation.. Behind the extremely fast Continuous Bolter Miner the material handling system was to following on its own, able to operate in coal seam heights as low as 1200mm. The system consists (except of the miner) of a 500mm low track driven hopper car and a conveyor. The hopper car acts as the counter weight to the conveyor tension and is designed to pull the conveyor belt out of the loop take up unit against a dynamic operating winch system whilst the conveyor is operating. The dimensional optimized LTU unit is track mounted and split up into 7 individual cars to be able to maneuver around corners whilst the conveyor belt stays inside the unit. The whole mining system is able to relocate with the onboard power equipment and no other assistance than the operators. It also extends and retracts via this onboard hydraulic and electrical power pack. All necessary material to extend a conveyor belt from 70 to 200m are stored onboard the mining system. Only 5 operators are necessary to run the whole mining system. The result of this R&D program was an extremely compact and very flexible universally useable mining system which deviates substantially from all other mining systems available on the international market. After building the mining system prototype, a comprehensive surface test was performed. Two international patents have been registered for the mining system in the name of the author.

Details

Translated title of the contributionSchnellproduktionssystem für die Kohlegewinnung aus geringen Flözmächtigkeiten
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDr.mont.
Supervisors/Advisors
Publication statusPublished - 2008