DBT said the technology, to be shown in Mackay July 25-27, heralded the beginning of a new era in thick-seam mining in Australia.
The LTCC system was originally developed for the Chinese market and is now being introduced into Australia at Austar.
LTCC technology incorporates a conventional longwall shearer, typically mining at a height of about 3m, but can be used to extract coal in seam heights of 4.5-12.5m. The top coal is caved and removed by a conveyor at the rear of the specially designed shields.
A 1.756m LTCC shield support, PF5/1142 and PF6/1142 armoured face conveyor (AFC) line pans will be exhibited at QME.
With a concept proven in more than 100 longwalls in China, the LTCC shield support extends from 1900mm to 3500mm and provides a total support capacity of 1040 tonnes.
The shield is fully automated with DBT’s latest generation PMC-R controls.
The front conveyor is a PF6 line pan with a replaceable deckplate, thicker sections and bottom plates to ensure extremely high wear-resistance and a dogbone breaking strength of 4500kN – and ideally complements the LTCC shield.
The rear conveyor is a PF5 line pan especially designed for the LTCC application.
Longwall top coal caving technology allows efficient exploitation of seams of up to 9m. Beyond the height of 5.5m single-pass longwall equipment has a history of difficult performance.
In Australia, underground proven reserves totalling 6.4 billion tonnes are in the range 4.5-9m.
In China nearly 80% of the available coal reserves are extracted using LTCC, compared to Australian longwall mines which currently extract about 30% to 40% of the available reserve.
LTCC also enables doubling or better improvements of recoverable tonnage per metre of gateroad development, significantly reducing cost per tonne. According to DBT, this adds up to making LTCC an extremely attractive option for thick-seam mining.
The technology on display is the culmination of three years spent on developing and introducing LTCC to Australia.
DBT will also present the diesel-powered MH-40 shield hauler/utility vehicle, winner of this year’s AusIndustry Innovation Award, as well as its Five-Star Service – a holistic approach to life cycle management of mining equipment that delivers safety, quality, reliability, know-how and integrity to maximise customers’ return on investment.
