DCL Mining Machine with D-10 or D-15 Cutter Head

Webster Technologies have been involved with the design of numerous mining machinery projects, the most recent one being a mini road header/Dinter Cutter Loader machine. The design involved a completely new concept boom with quick hitch facility to allow attachments to be swapped quickly and safely by means of a hydraulic clamp arrangement, this technology taken from the surface excavation industry and transferred to an underground application.

The 9ton machine has been fully redesigned too ensure that out D-10 or D-15 cutting units can be used and swapped back to a bucket very quickly. The design also included calculations for the correct water sprays for ignition control and safety, a circuit is shown in the illustration below.

NEWSCENE ARTICLE

SEPT OCT 2010 ISSUE

BEATING THE SQUEEZE

A new generation dinter-cutter-loader is helping to transform face heading conditions at West Yorkshire‚ Kellingley Colliery. The big squeeze on Kellingley‚ 501s, requires major surgery in the loader gate with dinting and retrospective side and roof bolting to create enough space to enable heavy duty equipment to be advanced as the face retreats back. The new compact hydraulically-driven system is doing the business some 30 to 40 metres outbye of the face, which, with 1,000m still to retreat should, as conditions improve, be producing up to 60,000 tonnes sa week from a 2.6m thick section in the Beeston seam. Says mechanical engineer Ian Dixon: We are convinced that the answer lies in this new method of dinting. To keep up with face retreat, which is about 13m a day, and create a route for equipment, such as the stage loader, would normally take two men per shift working on the blind side of the belt but can be done by this machine, operated by one man. Installed on the ribside of the belt, the metre-wide multi-purpose machine, The machine’s cutting arm can reach up to 4.3m and using a powerful 475mm diameter scroll with 64 cutting picks, combined with a 0.315 cubic metre loading bucket and a jigger pick that can tackle strata over 100 mega-pascals in strength, the DCL is advancing up to three metres a shift. And that‚ is taking up to a 1.4m dint in what was originally a 5.5m by 3.6m gate. Adds Ian Dixon : This method of dinting is making a big difference to Kellingley. It’s taken men out of an area of work which is heavy going and awkward.