MATERIALS HANDLING:

LOADING AND HAULAGE FOR

SURFACE COAL MINING
Reporters:
Sarah Mae Ajon
Dailyn Nivero
 Materials Handling
 A material most commonly handled by the
mining industry is rock that has been
fragmented either by mechanical or explosive
methods.
 This rock can be:
 an ore containing an economic mineral
 salable mineral product itself in a fairly undiluted
form
 waste rock that must be excavated to expose the
economic mineral deposit.
 Materials Handling

 In the simplest scenario, a loading device is

used to load fragmented ore into a unit
conveyance, which carries the ore to a facility
where it will be beneficiated.
 Typical units vary for different operations.
 Coal Removal on Surface Mines
 Coal is usually loaded by front-end loaders,
loading shovels, or wheel excavators into off-
highway, bottom-dump trucks for transport to
the stockpile.

 In small operations, it can be loaded into on-

highway trucks for direct shipment to
customers.
 The coal is loaded out of the mining area and is
taken to surface stockpiles, either to be shipped
out by rail or transported to a power plant
directly on the property (mine mouth operation).
Equipments for Loading and Haulage
 Dozers and Scrapers
 In land clearing, topsoil removal, and preparation
of the mining area for subsequent unit
operations, bulldozers and scrapers have
extensive applications.
 Currently, scrapers for rock have bucket
capacities of 33 cubic metres (1,165 cubic feet;
about 47 tons of material), and scrapers for coal
have capacities of 43 cubic metres (37 tons).
Bulldozers have blade capacities up to 30 cubic
metres.
Equipments for Loading and Haulage
 Dozers and Scrapers
Equipments for Loading and Haulage
 Shovels and Trucks
 When the haul distances are small (for
example, 500 to 1,000 metres) and the
overburden material soft, a fleet of scrapers
can load, haul, and dump the overburden.
 Where distances are very small (for example,
30 to 40 metres), mobile front-end loaders, or
wheel loaders, may be used to load, haul, and
dump.
 Three types of shovel are currently used in mines:
the stripping shovel, the loading (or quarry-mine)
shovel, and the hydraulic shovel.
 Hydraulic and loading shovels are available with
capacities up to and over 30 cubic metres.
 The capacity of the loading shovel is carefully
matched with the haul unit into which the load will be
dumped.
 In open-pit coal mines, the haul units for overburden
material are usually large, off-highway, end-
dumping trucks; their capacities range from 35 to
250 tons.
 The stripping shovel has a large bucket, usually sits in
the pit on the top of the coal seam, digs into the
overburden material, and deposits it in the adjacent
mined-out area.
Stripping Shovel
Loading Shovel
Hydraulic Shovel
Equipments for Loading and Haulage
 Draglines
 the most commonly used overburden-removal
equipment in surface coal mining.
 A dragline sits on the top of the overburden, digs
the overburden material directly in front of it, and
disperses the material over greater distances
than a shovel.
 Compared with shovels, draglines provide
greater flexibility, work on higher benches, and
move more material per hour. The largest
dragline in operation has a bucket capacity of
170 cubic metres.
Dragline
 Equipments for Loading and Haulage
 Wheel excavators
 a continuous excavation machine capable of removing up to
12,000 cubic metres per hour. The most favourable soil and
strata conditions for BWE operation are soft,
unconsolidated overburden materials without large
boulders.
 BWEs are widely employed in lignite mining in Europe,
Australia, and India. In these mines, the wheel excavators
deposit the overburden and coal materials onto high-speed,
high-capacity belt conveyors for transport to the mined-out
areas of the pit and the coal stockpile, respectively.
 In the United States, wheel excavators have been used in
combination with shovels or draglines, with a wheel
handling soft topsoil and clay layers and a shovel or dragline
removing hard strata.
Bucket-wheel Excavator
 Loading: Lay-Out of Mining Areas

1. Provide sufficient operating room whenever possible

2. Develop mine standards on typical operation lay-out

for major equipment

3. Enforce adherence to the standard designs

4. Strive to improve the practice and the standards

Loading: Loading and Dumping Efficiency

1. Custom design the loading method to

maximize loading efficiency by:
a. Maximizing loading rate
b. Minimizing truck/shovel waiting time

2. Use double back-up whenever possible

3. Allow sufficient room for unrestricted
maneuvering
Loading Methods

Double Back-up
Loading Methods

Double Back-up
Loading Methods

Single Back-up
Loading Methods

Single Back-up
Loading Methods
Loading Methods
Grazie!!