Analysis of the Current Challenges for Deep Underground Mines: Labour Productivity Improvement

With much of the ore deposits close to the surface already discovered and mined, the mines are becoming deeper, and this brings multiple challenges. One of the challenges is the longer haul distance from active mining areas to the mine surface, hence longer transportation time of material and operators. Longer transportation time of operators may lead to the reduction of the labour productivity. Labour productivity in today’s mines is a key importance, and is currently dependent on together with other factors that operators should be at the vehicles or working area on time. There has been some development in mine automation, but the vast majority of underground mine operations are still in need of operators. Several methods are available and can be used to transport operators to the underground working areas. These methods include mine vehicles, mine taxis, mine buses, monorail, and shaft system. As mine depth increases, the method with higher labour productivity will be of much useful in operator’s transportation. The aim of this study is to investigate personal transportation methods for deeper underground operations by comparing labour productivity when using mine vehicle, mine taxi, mine buses, and monorail system. The results show that mine vehicle has higher labour productivity of up to 76% of available time, while mine buses have low labour productivity. It has been reveal that for shallow depth mines, a good option to improve labour productivity is to have few operators transported per cycle, while for deep mines, a transport system that is faster, accommodate few operators per cycle, less possibility to meet traffic will be the better option for labour productivity improvement.

Research on the Collision Detection Technology of Coal-Cutting Machinery in Remote Virtual Control

On account of the dangerousness of coal mining, the remote virtual control of coal-cutting machinery is the development direction of coal mine automation, and collision detection is a crucial technology of virtual reality system. In order to solve the problems about through the wall during virtual scene walkthrough in virtual control of coal-cutting machinery, this paper has researched collision detection algorithm, according to the characteristics of coalface and virtual reality system scene, taking advantage of hierarchical bounding volumes algorithm to solve the collision detection problems of coalface in virtual reality system. And it has compiled the algorithm by applying SDK of Quest3D software. Research results show that, realization of the collision detection algorithm has solved scene roaming simulation degree and the speed of the system in coalface virtual scene walkthrough.

Design of Coal Mine Belt Conveyor Control System Based on OPC Technology

OPC has been widely applied to coal mine automation control system as an industry standard of communication between the field control substation and PC in the control system. In this paper, through the analysis and design for the transport system of coal mine belt conveyor, communication between the PC and S7-300 PLC is realized by using OPC technology. This paper gives the configuration scheme of OPC Server and develops the OPC Client program. The actual operation shows that the system is stable, reliable of communication and high of data real-time.

Research of Mine Drainage Automatic Control System Based on PLC

According to the development of mine automation requirements, Siemens S7-300 PLC is adopted in order to do the research of mine drainage automatic control system in this paper. Combined with frequency control technology, the system can schedule the pumps reasonably by monitoring water level and pressure signals. With failure alarm, group network communication and other functions, it’s profitable to achieve the whole mine automatic control and the economic operation of the entire system.