June 2005
A wet-fan scrubber box supplied by Colliery Dust Control
(CDC) of Springs for use on Sandvik Mining & Construction’s (SMC)
revolutionary new boxhole borer has solved the dust problem that initially
occurred at the cutting end of the prototype unit currently being tested at
Lonmin’s Eastern Platinum mine near Rustenburg in North West Province.
When the first two holes were cut by the machine in late-March and
early-April this year the mine and SMC realised a dust control system was
required to suppress the large quantity of dust generated by the cutting
head.
“The machine was designed and built incorporating two dust collectors at the
loading end of the machine but the dust problem at the front end hasn’t been
catered for in the initial design. CDC’s scrubber has solved the problem
perfectly,” said Michael Ross, SMC’s project manager boxhole boring.
“There’s no comparison between the first two holes and the last three, which
have been cut using the scrubber, which has proven highly effective in
suppressing the dust.”
CDC, South Africa’s leading manufacturer and supplier of dust suppression
systems for continuous miners in underground coal mines, was approached by
SMC to attend to the problem as the two companies are already working in
partnership on another project for the local platinum mining industry – a
continuous miner developed for use in hardrock mining.
One of the company’s standard scrubber box models used in coal mining – a
CDC550D model with an air volume capacity of 5,5 cu m/sec - is being used on
the boxhole borer. “In the present arrangement on the prototype borer the
scrubber is mounted on a frame alongside the machine and connected to by a
duct, but it will probably be mounted directly onto the borer in its final
commercial form,” commented CDC’s general manager Bob Johnstone.
SMC’s boxhole borer promises to replace
the conventional raise borer to cut ore passes in underground mines as it
dispenses with the need to drill a pilot hole ahead of cutting the main hole
and has the additional advantages of doing the job much faster and more
safely than the traditional method.
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