The future development of mining equipment
As an important equipment in the traditional primary industry, the mining industry, rock drilling equipment must be highly intelligent in the future in the era of Internet of Everything and Intelligent Manufacturing, and it will also become a part of the Internet of Everything. It is currently in the cultivation and development period of equipment replacement.
Limited by a variety of factors, there are various types of mining equipment. Many mines use very backward hand-held rock drilling equipment, which is inefficient and very unsafe. Some mines coexist with handheld and fully hydraulically controlled rock drilling equipment. Many mines have gradually begun to use more advanced and efficient electronically controlled rock drilling equipment, and a very few large mines have begun to use remotely controlled or centrally controlled rock drilling and mining equipment. .
Objectively speaking, the advancement of society and science and technology has given birth to the upgrading of rock drilling equipment, which also requires more advanced and intelligent rock drilling equipment. Rock drilling equipment needs to be continuously innovated in inheritance to meet the needs of future modern mines. At the same time, the high-intensity operations of mines have made fewer and fewer people engaged in this industry, and they are older, mostly in their 40s and 50s, and few young people under 30 are engaged in this industry. This is of course inseparable from the poor working environment and difficult conditions in the mines.
At the same time, the labor intensity of engaging in rock drilling work is too high and the site is dangerous, which is also a big reason why young people do not want to do this work. According to the current trend, there will be fewer and fewer people engaged in mining work. Therefore, the development of the mining industry itself also requires more efficient, intelligent and safe equipment, so as to minimize the number of underground workers, so that safe production in mines is Essentially safe. If unmanned mines are realized in the future, personnel safety issues will be truly intrinsically safe.
1. Mining
At present, the main method used in mining is drilling and blasting, because this method is the most economical and effective. The key equipment in the drilling and blasting method is rock drilling equipment. As an important piece of mining equipment, rock drilling equipment has mainly experienced handheld pneumatic rock drills, fully hydraulic rock drilling rigs, electro-hydraulic console vehicles, and full computer pallets from the perspective of its development history.
Since the successful development of pneumatic rock drills in 1844, pneumatic rock drilling equipment has undergone many improvements. At present, many small-scale mines are still in use. Due to its shortcomings such as low efficiency, high pollution, and high noise, it has gradually become highly efficient, low-noise, Replaced by environmentally friendly hydraulic rock drilling rigs. According to field observation and comparison, the efficiency of hydraulic rock drilling equipment is 4 to 5 times that of pneumatic rock drilling equipment. Since its birth, hydraulic rock drilling rigs have also experienced different stages of full hydraulic control, electro-hydraulic control, remote control, and full computer control. It has been found in practice that although the efficiency of the full hydraulic control rig is greatly improved compared to the pneumatic rock drill, the control principle is more complicated, especially the hydraulic control system is more cumbersome, and it is difficult to achieve logical control.
It is not the best choice for users at present. Instead, it is Electro-hydraulic controlled rock drilling equipment. The biggest advantage of electro-hydraulic control rock drilling equipment is to simplify the hydraulic control system. The more complex logic control is realized by PLC. The hydraulic circuit is simple. At the same time, the complex operating handle is simplified and integrated into a console, which is convenient and labor-saving. By adding a wireless transceiver module, remote control can be easily achieved. Due to the simplified hydraulic system, the failure rate is also greatly reduced, but the electrical technical level of maintenance equipment personnel is relatively high. The rock drilling equipment controlled by PLC has the advantage that the full hydraulic control equipment can't realize, that is, it can realize remote remote control or centralized control. It is currently the first choice for new mine selection equipment, and it is also a prerequisite for intelligentization in the future. More and more users have begun to like to use full hydraulic or electro-hydraulic controlled rock drilling equipment, and some use more advanced computer console vehicles. Because of the powerful communication function, the computer trolley can be attached with various communication interfaces, which provides the possibility for the future digital mines and the interconnection of everything, and is also the basis for the intelligentization of future rock drilling equipment.
Before 2000, most advanced rock drilling equipment was mainly imported from abroad. Rock drilling equipment like Atlas and Sandvik were widely used in major domestic mines. Because foreign equipment is generally expensive, the maintenance costs in the later period are high, and spare parts are not timely. After years of upgrading and transformation of domestic equipment, more and more mines have begun to use domestic equipment. After more than ten years of rapid development, the gap between domestic rock drilling equipment and foreign equipment is getting smaller and smaller. At the same time, due to higher cost performance, the current market share is increasing year by year.
During this period, many outstanding private enterprises have emerged. With the help of a good domestic development environment and policy dividends, many advanced technologies and solutions have been applied to the design and production of rock drilling equipment. They are in control, automatic control and remote control. Major breakthroughs have been made in such areas, and individual performance is no less than imported equipment, and the market has responded well.
At present, in large-scale domestic mines, such as Shougang Xingshan Iron Mine, the exploration and application of the "Demonstration Project for Digital Construction of Underground Metal Mines" began in 2014. In order to achieve the first-class modern digital mine goal of "safety, health, green and harmony" of "replacement by mechanization and reduction by automation", a large number of advanced equipment at home and abroad has been used. The six operating areas of the mine, including the pioneering area, mining area, tunnel area, crushing area, lifting area and power area, are equipped with advanced equipment and can communicate directly with the central control room, so that the overall operation can be realized. At the same time, camera equipment is installed in different working areas to monitor the working environment and working conditions in time.
As the key equipment in the pioneering area and mining area, the rock drilling equipment is duty-bound to realize electronic and intelligent control. Xingshan Iron Mine uses the more advanced M4C fully automatic medium and deep hole mining trolley, which can realize automatic drilling and automatic moving. The equipment that used to be operated by two people can now be completed by only one person, and one person can operate two equipment in the same working area at the same time, reducing the number of operators. At the same time, the work data can be uploaded and the equipment information can be understood in time, which can greatly improve the production efficiency, and it is also safer, and the labor intensity of the workers is greatly reduced.
2. Future development trend
Combined with the current development status of the mining industry, the age of the practitioners, the background of the strategic transformation and upgrading of equipment manufacturing enterprises, and the rapid development of intelligent manufacturing and industrial Internet of Things. Hand-held low-efficiency rock drilling equipment will be eliminated first. As the current main force, pure hydraulic and electro-hydraulic controlled rock drilling equipment is facing major upgrade and transformation opportunities. All-computer intelligent trolleys will occupy the commanding heights of the rock drilling equipment industry. . Whoever has the most advanced and intelligent rock drilling equipment will have the most powerful voice in the field of rock drilling equipment in the future. The future of digital mines is inseparable from the intelligentization of rock drilling equipment. The era of Internet of Everything also requires upgrading of rock drilling equipment. Only smarter can achieve the Internet of Everything.
