Method and apparatus for increasing the efficiency of highwall mining

摘要

A highwall mining machine having a power head located on a bench adjacent the highwall and a cutter head operable to cut a mined hole into a coal seam when thrust forward by the cutter head through an intervening compression beam multisection includes sensors for measuring the inclination of the cutter head and the cutter drum boom on the cutter head for the taking of multiple measurements of the hole position and the coal thickness as the hole is being mined. The data is stored for consecutive mined holes. A display is generated to produce a map of the hole and seam boundaries for the operator so that the operator can set or override programmed settings of the machine controls in further guiding the machine. The data also produces automatic computations of mined coal amount, coal mining rate, and unmined coal remaining or of the recovery rate.