Dosco Overseas Engineering Ltd.

Michael Etherington

Hugh Wilson

There is provided a continuous mining system comprising at least one chassis, boom arrangement for supporting a continuous miner cutting head, roadheader turntable assembly and, optionally, drilling machine. The latter three items are adapted so that each of them can be removably mounted on any one of the at least one chassis. This enables a continuous mining operation to be carried out without the need to remove the whole of the mining machine if hard rock is encountered.

Mining machinery

An apparatus and method for controlling the profile of an aperture cut by a cutting head capable of traversing movement in two directions at right angles to each other, e.g. the cutting head of a mining machine, wherein means is provided to control the movement of the cutting head in said two directions and including a template for an internal profile representing that part of the aperture to be cut, a sensing device engageable with the template profile, follower means associated with the cutting head to cause relative movement between the sensing device and template in a direction related to movement of the cutting tool, movement of the sensing device into engagement with the profile operating hydraulic sensing equipment which automatically overrides the means to control the movement of the cutting head, thereby preventing the cutting head from moving beyond the desired tunnel profile. The hydraulic sensing equipment preferably comprises a series of control valves associated with respective quadrants of the profile which are connected together in such a manner as to reverse the direction of movement of the cutting head as necessary.

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Retford, United Kingdom

Michael Etherington