AUTOMATIC FACE TRANSFER LINEAR CUTTING ROTARY HEAD CONTINUOUS MINING MACHINE

摘要

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREA coal mining apparatus and its method of use in whicha continuous mining machine removes and transfers cut materialreducing airborne respirable coal dust generated in the cuttingand collection process. The conventional high speed heat rota-ting with the bits going forward at the top is replaced by atriangular shaped dished out linear cutting head rotating withthe bits mounted at the apexes going rearward at the top. Thisproduces a box cut in the mine face with a square cross-section.After the head has made a box cut by sumping the full head dia-meter beginning at the mine floor, it is sheared upwardly pro-ducing a linear shear cut. This shear step is at a constantdepth equal to the complete cutting head diameter. The modi-fied cutting head is used as part of the loading and transfermechanism. This is accomplished by reversing its direction ofrotation and cutting on the upstroke from floor to roof so thatthe head acts as a bucket collecting the cut coal, then trans-ferred to an adjacent transport system which allows the cutcoal to be loaded and conveyed away from the mine face withoutfurther dust generation due to free fall fracture on the flooror intermediate handling by a dust generating gathering headmechanism. To insure that the coal is consistently dischargedat the proper position, a movable bridge conveyor and followerassembly is used with the cutting head.-1-