Post by John on Mar 5, 2015 10:24:28 GMT -5
I'll post info from my own experience of retreat LW faces for those that may not have seen a retreat face in operation.
I'll start from a new face start up and add development of a face later.
To make the face continuous in operation with few stoppages we used a gate conveyor with a large automatic loop take up.
The faces I was on produced three shifts and night shift was a maintenance and preparation shift, ie loop take up emptied of belt, there were several belt sections that could be removed without having to rejoint the belt in place.
The 11Kv supply was via double wire armoured cable and ending up in a length of pliable wire armoured cable plugged into the transformers. About once every few weeks a length of armoured cable would be dropped out and the pliable wire armoured cable would be run back outbye to the last length of armoured cable and re hung.
All services, GEB's, transformers, pumps, tanks, winch were mounted on a pantechnicon, which was made up of sledges coupled together.
Power, water for dust suppression and cooling of the shearer, an hydraulic hoses were installed in covered cable carriers then through flexible cable carriers from the pantech to the face.
Conveyors consisted of the Armoured Face Conveyor, which fed onto a "beam" stage loader with integral crusher, the long "beam" of the S/L rode over the main gate conveyor.
During a belt retraction, several sections of conveyor structure was removed from the gate belt and the gate belt inched to pull the return roller outbye and rejoined to it's main structure. The automatic loop take up at the drive head stored the excess belt until it could be removed on the maintenance shift.
Coal cutting was carried out with a double ended ranging drum shearer, operated by two drivers, cutting to the T/G, the lead drum cuts the roof, trailing drum cuts the floor.
Once cut out into the T/G, the shearer was "snaked" into the next cut, T/G part of the AFC pushed over, shearer brought into the T/G to "cut out", then start it's journey back cutting to the M/G leading drum cutting the roof, trailing cutting the floor.
I'll start from a new face start up and add development of a face later.
To make the face continuous in operation with few stoppages we used a gate conveyor with a large automatic loop take up.
The faces I was on produced three shifts and night shift was a maintenance and preparation shift, ie loop take up emptied of belt, there were several belt sections that could be removed without having to rejoint the belt in place.
The 11Kv supply was via double wire armoured cable and ending up in a length of pliable wire armoured cable plugged into the transformers. About once every few weeks a length of armoured cable would be dropped out and the pliable wire armoured cable would be run back outbye to the last length of armoured cable and re hung.
All services, GEB's, transformers, pumps, tanks, winch were mounted on a pantechnicon, which was made up of sledges coupled together.
Power, water for dust suppression and cooling of the shearer, an hydraulic hoses were installed in covered cable carriers then through flexible cable carriers from the pantech to the face.
Conveyors consisted of the Armoured Face Conveyor, which fed onto a "beam" stage loader with integral crusher, the long "beam" of the S/L rode over the main gate conveyor.
During a belt retraction, several sections of conveyor structure was removed from the gate belt and the gate belt inched to pull the return roller outbye and rejoined to it's main structure. The automatic loop take up at the drive head stored the excess belt until it could be removed on the maintenance shift.
Coal cutting was carried out with a double ended ranging drum shearer, operated by two drivers, cutting to the T/G, the lead drum cuts the roof, trailing drum cuts the floor.
Once cut out into the T/G, the shearer was "snaked" into the next cut, T/G part of the AFC pushed over, shearer brought into the T/G to "cut out", then start it's journey back cutting to the M/G leading drum cutting the roof, trailing cutting the floor.
