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Virtual mine design paradigm for underground mining
Published in Tad S. Golosinski, Mining in the New Millennium Challenges and Opportunities, 2020
The Interpretative Data Base is not only needed to be determined in great detail before the design starts, but it must be also continually updated until all reserves are actually mined out. The Engineering Data Base is shown in Figure 4. This is the area where the creative part of the design begins. Design starts from the lowest level of this fractal structure. Design is the creative activity while all the necessary information is the design context (the conditions and circumstances affecting the design). There are two distinct design activities: mining and development. While in reality the main access openings are constructed first, followed by the development in the ore body to set up a mining face, the design process actually follows a reverse order. Because a mine face is the focal point of all activities, the mining faces are designed first, followed by the design of necessary development and service excavations to handle the production, power, supplies and ventilation. The main access openings such as shafts are usually designed last.
Quick construction model of mine in Shendong
Published in Wang Yuehan, Ge Shirong, Guo Guangli, Mining Science and Technology, 2004
The incline tunnel development method, trackless ancillary conveyance and the solution of long large section driving, boost layout reformation of preparing and gateway from traditional panel entry to main entry with banding arrangement. Extracting face gets to edge of coal field directly without panel and preparing entry. The traditional three stages division design of mine → panel (mining area) → working face is reformed to two stages of mine → face to simplify mine system and save shaft sinking and drifting. For example, Huojitu mine entirely cancels original 5 panels, face is layout along both side of main entry, the boundary of coal field is working face cutting eye with less driving preparing entry of 20000 m; From the time of design, Yujialiand mine adopts non-panel layout. After the entry formed of shaft and main entry, working face is directly arranged so as to decrease entry engineering and shorten construction period.
Mechanization, Automation, and New Technology in Mining
Published in Joel Lööw, Bo Johansson, Eira Andersson, Jan Johansson, Designing Ergonomic, Safe, and Attractive Mining Workplaces, 2018
Joel Lööw, Bo Johansson, Eira Andersson, Jan Johansson
Beyond the social effects, it is also important to recognize the complexities and the trade-offs that have to be considered in issues of, for example, productivity (though these issues are not purely technical and also include social aspects). For example, Hartman and Mutmansky (2002) identified some dilemmas for line-of-sight remote control. Using sight and hearing, operators can efficiently operate and control a machine with less risk to their health and safety. But as they move farther away from the machine, they also lose some capacity for control, as well as potentially losing some of the health and safety benefits of operating from inside a cabin. Hartman and Mutmansky (2002) also gave examples from tele-remote operations. Here, located far from the mine face (e.g. above ground in a control room), operators still exercise manual control, but the benefits are that there is no travel time to and from the mining face. There is also the possibility of operating several machines in parallel (usually if some elements are semi-autonomous). In the latter scenario, labour productivity is markedly increased. However, it is not guaranteed that each individual machine will be more productive; on the one hand, automated machines may not perform as well as a skilled operator; on the other hand, automated machines may be able to drive faster or be subject to fewer safety regulations. In any case, Hartman and Mutmansky (2002) observed that while remote control has improved health and safety, it has not improved efficiency because the process still requires manual control. Increased efficiency, they argued, is attained only when processes are automated.
Thermogravimetric analysis of respirable coal mine dust for simple source apportionment
Published in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 2022
Lizeth Jaramillo, Eleftheria Agioutanti, Setareh Ghaychi Afrouz, Cigdem Keles, Emily Sarver
Along with the RCMD source apportionment results, Figure 6 (and Figure S1) shows the average relative heights of coal and rock at the production face during the RCMD sampling. The disproportionate contribution of rock strata to the respirable dust in this location is striking. On average, rock represented 37% of the total mining height in central Appalachian mines included in this study, yet 78% of the of the RCMD sourced from the mine strata (coal + rock) is attributed to the rock. In the mines outside of this region, only about 20% of the total mining height was in rock, but 36% of the RCMD sourced from the mine strata is attributed to the rock. This analysis suggests rock generates about 2x as much respirable dust as coal during mining (i.e., by a continuous miner drum or longwall shearer), or that controls applied at the mine face (e.g., water sprays, scrubbers) are more effective for respirable coal particles than for mineral dust particles. Notably, a previous study using SEM-EDX to characterize RCMD in the same mines studied here similarly found that particles likely sourced from rock strata (i.e., silicates and silica) were much more abundant (number %) than expected based on the relative rock vs. coal mining heights (Sarver et al. 2021); using the SEM-EDX data, the rock strata seemed to produce about 2–3x as much respirable dust as coal.
Potential of on-board energy recovery systems to reduce haulage costs over the life of a deep surface mine
Published in Mining Technology, 2019
Petrus J. Terblanche, Michael P. Kearney, Micah Nehring, Peter F. Knights
Rodovalho and de Tomi (2016) consider appropriate equipment selection and mine face geometry resulting in a 14% reduction in specific fuel consumption and a 16% increase in productivity in a strip-mining application. In the application considered, the maximum elevation change is only 16 m. This implies a relatively small amount of potential energy – a key aspect to the effectiveness of ERS – being available for recovery. Although the recovery of kinetic energy may be able to improve fuel efficiency and productivity of the haul truck cases considered, such improvements will be marginal, and it is highly unlikely to improve their performance to the extent needed to compete with the results of the dozer fleet.