Design Methodology for Cutting Drum, Power Rating and Operational Control of Surface Miner under Varied Rock Conditions—An Approach

Surface miners are being increasingly used in opencast mines owing to their ability to excavate thin bands selectively. Even-minor variations in intact rock and rock mass parameters can adversely affect the performance of surface miner in terms of production and pick consumption. Power utilization both by rotary motion of cutting drum and linear motion of surface miner has been taken into account for arriving at suitable cutting speed and depth of cut. Cutting speed of surface miner, cutting force developed by individual pick and number of active picks coming in contact with the rock in respect to depth of cut under varied tensile strength can be determined through these studies. This will help the end user to decide suitable parameters for operational control. It is essential to optimize the operating parameters of machine (cutting speed and depth of cut) for a given rock mass condition with available machine power. The present study covers the 2.2 m wide drums of surface miner. Distribution of power available to the components of the machine has been arrived based on technical specifications of each component, taking power loss due to sleep occurs in belt power transmission mechanism