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Equipment For Mining

Mining represents the extraction of different underground minerals from an ore. It relates to extraction of materials like: precious metals, iron, coal, uranium, solid fuels, limestone, diamonds, salt or potash.

When working in mines, a safe environment has to be provided for the workers, so miners use a large spectrum of strong and high-tech equipment. The most common tools used by miners are digging and coal cutting systems, hammers, blasting equipment, mine locomotives, carriages and loaders. For safety issues, miners are required to use conveyer belts, protective caps and lamps.

The mining industry is in a continuous evolving state, therefore specialized companies need to keep producing new and improved pieces of equipment according to the market demands, to enable the extraction of larger amounts of raw materials. In order to sell their products, suppliers provide high quality tools.

The most used equipments are divided into the following categories: for underground and for surface mining. For high performances, complex machinery is needed. For example, continuous mining is a machine used to cut the coal with a rotating toothed steel drum. It can extract up to 45 tones of coal at once. This machinery also has conveyors belts which serve in transporting the removed coal from the seam.

Roof bolters are highly used tools that prevent rock falls by reinforcing the mine roofs. Miners install them to protect themselves in case of any unexpected accidents. In order to prevent the flame propagation after an explosion, miners use rock dusters which throw dust over the coal. The personnel are transported through the mines by a network of rails and rail carts.

The surface mining equipment is also complex, and it is used mostly as a support in the mineral extractions. At the entrance of a pit, miners usually use draglines. A dragline is a system which removes the dirt over the coal and the other minerals. It is a powerful machine which can lift up more than several hundred tones. The dragline excavators are used in digging operations along with the loaders which gather the extracted materials.

The high-wall miner is a machine which is usually operated from a bench, removing the overburden coal material. The complex surface mining equipment also relates to machines like blast-hole drills. They are used to produce holes for blasting charges, dozers, graders, trains or rail cars to transport the coal.

Safety is of great importance therefore miners have to take precautions when working in mines. There are special equipments which ensure the miner’s protection. For instance, self –rescuers provide respiratory protection against carbon monoxide gas which results from underground explosions or coal fires.  The miners also use lightweight belts whichallow them to carry the cap lamp battery pack, the self-rescuer, and the other tools on the job. Probably one of the most amazing safety inventions for miners are the refuge chambers which are specially designed to keep the workers safe up to 96 hours providing the needed adequate air, food , water and sanitary needs until rescued.

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