The United States of America as Represented by the Secretary of

Foster-Miller Associates, Inc.

Paul J Guay

Cecil Vowe Peake

Jonathan E Ludlow

A longwall mining system includes a bidirectional shearer and a roof supporting structure. The shearer includes a pair of angled floor drums, a pivotable roof drum and a loading conveyor. Each drum has a plurality of picks disposed about the drum surface for cutting a material to be mined and a plurality of vanes disposed on the drum surface for carrying the cut material to the loading conveyor. The roof supporting structure includes a load carrying shield which is braced by a pair of supports. The supports are located under the shield in a position between the shearer and a face conveyor. The face conveyor, which is fed by the loading conveyor, carries the mined material to main conveyor for haulage to the outside.

Longwall mining system

A chainless haulage system having at least three pairs of sprocket wheels, each pair disposed on a separate axle with opposed wheels on each axle aligned in a pair of parallel planes. Two pairs of sprocket wheels are disposed laterally offset from each other and serve as follower sprocket wheels, while a third pair is driven by conventional means. A pair of endless drive chains each having adjacent chain links in generally perpendicular planes respectively engage sprocket wheels disposed in the parallel planes to form a double strand of drive chain. The two endless drive chains are interconnected by a plurality of crossbars, each of which is formed of a pair of opposed chain links integrally connected by a connecting bar, the chain links of the cross bar inserted in series with the links of the endless drive chain. A hollow cylindrical roller is loosely disposed around the connecting bar of the cross bar. The sprocket wheels, the endless drive chains, and the cross bars are contained in a housing which at the bottom of the housing running the entire length thereof includes two guide bars. A plurality of contact pins are disposed in a line along the mine face. These contact pins are received between the housing guide bars, and as the endless drive chains are driven around the pairs of sprocket wheels, the contact pins are engaged by the cross bars, thereby propelling the housing.

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Stoughton, MA, United States of America

Paul J Guay