TUNNELLING
Komatsu’s MC51 READY TO ROCK AT GARSON
Hard rock continuous miner undergoing 1-year trial at Vale mine in Sudbury By Alisha Hiyate
I
f you made it to this year’s MINExpo convention in Las Vegas, you might have witnessed Komatsu’s MC51 hard rock continuous miner in action – kind of. While the machine wasn’t actually at the show, there was a life si e video display of the doing what it is designed to do – mechanically chewing through rock (simulated in this case) using a cutter mounted on a robotic boom. The cutter’s smooth and quick movements as it chipped the rock into small pieces to excavate a by metre tunnel were hypnoti ing. “The stand was never empty – there were always people
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there talking about mechanical cutting and about the future of that technology,” says Stephen Styles, Komatsu product manager, hard rock mining. Considering the departure that continuous hard rock mining represents from conventional mining, it’s not a surprise that the display attracted such interest. The mining sector has long sought a workable alternative to the status quo drill-blast-muck-haul cycle of underground mining, for e ciency, productivity and safety reasons. Existing tunnelling machines used for civil applications don t have the flexibility, agility or smaller si e needed for mining applications, and the pick-based rotary style of cutting that
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