Modern longwall faces have an enormous appetite for development drivage. Consequently, high speed roadway development became more and more essential. Combinations of heading machines and support setting devices have been studied with the aim to increase the speed of cutting and support setting and/or roof bolting. As a result on-board bolting rigs have been introduced in the last years and gained wide acceptance. The approach of several manufacturers has been to attach bolting rigs onto standard continuous miners. This resulted in a discontinuous heading operation. simultaneous cutting and roof bolting operations have been demonstrated for the first time at Tahmoor Colliery in New South Wales/Australis with great success. Since its introduction in May 1991, the Alpine Bolter Miner ABM 20, the world's first machine for simultaneous cutting and bolting, has made its pace into the Australian, American, South African and British coal mining industry, achieving out-standing drivage performances. This paper is aimed to describe the philosophy behind the machine design and the experience gained in operation of simultaneous cutting and bolting.
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