New Methods Being Developed to Mine Highwall Coal Resources That Employ Teleoperation or Ultrathin Slot Cutting Techniques.
Mayercheck-WD; Kwitowski-AJ; Ducarme-JP
Paper in Mining Tech Economics and Policy 1990 :445-473
The capability of an operator to remotely control a mining machine hundreds or thousands of feet distant with only sensory feedback is now referred to as teleoperation. Since 1979, the U.S. Bureau of Mines has aggressively sought ways to develop this technology to provide a safe haven for continuous miner operators and create a productive work place in underground coal mines. Under a cooperative agreement with a West Virginia firm, the Bureau is demonstrating teleoperation technology to mine coal reserves from a highwall bench. Additionally, since 1987, at its Pittsburgh Research Center, the Bureau has investigated techniques to mine ultrathin coal resources via small- and full-scale physical model simulations of a technique to extract 4-in-thick slots with a coal seam under a mountaintop setting. This paper describes highwall mining techniques that are designed to extract both coal reserves in the 30-inch-plus category and coal resources from 6 in and up.
Paper in Mining Tech. Economics and Policy 1990. Am. Min. Congr., PP. 445-473