Installing Roof Bolts In Coal Mining

All bolts installed were 5 8 inch grade 60 resin bolts except for a few inch bolts used in bolt installation pressure tests.

Installing roof bolts in coal mining.

The roof specialist can also evaluate mine pillar design by using computer applications. Roof bolt pull tests can be performed to evaluate the installation of different types of roof bolting systems. Remove drill bits from chucks after drilling holes and insert bolts into chucks. Roof bolting in coal mines began on a modest scale in the early 1950s.

At the end of the day it s all about operator buy in the only thing more frustrating to a roof bolter than trying to install a rib bolt with limited protection is to find you have a box of limp resin cartridges. The bolts themselves were not readily available either. Currently roof bolting is the primary means of supporting mine roof in room and pillar operations in the bituminous coal sector. Likewise the companies that manufacture bolts and resin cartridges are always looking at ways to improve their products.

In some cases timbering machines were modified to double as roof bolters. The pull tests were instrumented with a string pot potentiometer. Many of the first mines to install roof bolts built their own cars to carry the drills compressor bolts and other supplies from face to face figure 12. Falls of ground are still the biggest cause of fatalities in south african coal mines and upon investigation it was found that the main cause of these incidents is excessive roof bolt spacing.

Measurements were conducted at the safety research coal mine srcm using a single boom roof bolting machine. On a daily basis mining roof bolters install various types of bolts including truss glue and resin bolts traversing entire ceiling spans. In some cases they were fabricated in the mine s own shop. A typical day for a mining roof bolter will also include.