WP-3
The main objectives of WP3 are:
- To gather, compile and evaluate information about current geophysical methods used for the characterization of the geological formations in respect to their diggability by surface coal-mining equipment and particularly by bucket-wheel excavators.
- To assess the capability of the most appropriate geophysical methods (derived from the previous review) in varying geological and mining conditions by performing field tests using conventional geophysical instrumentation in the coal-mines of the beneficiaries
companies.
- To develop specialized hardware (based on existing geophysical instrumentation), installed on the bucket wheel slewing boom, and dedicated software for acquisition, transmission and processing of the obtained measurements.
- To build an expert system which can inform in advance the BWE operators for the occurrence of hard rock inclusions or difficult or even non-diggable geological formations. The reasoning of this expert system will be based on data obtained from the geophysical
instrumentation installed on BWE, on visual inspection of the mine’s face and on existing experiential knowledge regarding mining with BWE.
- To develop method for decrease or even exclude the influence of abnormal impulse loads generated during exploitation of stones and large fractions of solid rocks.
Expert system-aided operation of the bucket wheel excavator is expected to contribute to fewer faults and damages due to changing geological and mining conditions, to reduced amount of idle and break-down time, to less equipment wear, to increased production
rate, to significant energy savings and finally to cost savings.