L&T surface miner - application and experience

摘要

Mining is a hazardous process, which can have adverse effect to environment, human life and safety. Sometimes the minerals are deposited so closely to the human habitation that the conventional mining methodology cannot be adopted. Very often the mineral bands are found so closely mixed with the other rocks that it is very difficult to mine them separately. So the opencast mining calls for development of an appropriate technology, which can be adopted efficiently with minimum environment and safety hazards. Surface miner is a viable solution to overcome these problems. Due to the environmental/safety and economic reasons, surface miners are finding more and more applications for extracting various types of mine deposit. L&T has started its journey with surface miners about five years back and has now gained reasonable experience on its application. The team of L& T has acquired knowledge and experience in the operation of surface miner in various types of mine deposits in India and abroad. With this knowledge and experience the team of L& T is evaluating new mines and application for adaptation of surface miner. The surface miner extracts the deposit in opencast mines, from top face as it advances. A rotating cutter drum mills the deposit. It employs mechanical cutting process of rock. The cutter of the drum may penetrate the deposit from top to bottom (top-down cutting) or from bottom to top (bottom-up cutting) for mining the deposit. L&T has adopted bottom- up cutting for its surface miners as it is found to be more efficient in cutting. The cutting tools on dram are placed in a spiral form so that the mined material comes to center. Models are available with conveyors as optional attachment so that the mined materials can be directly loaded in the dumpers.