Underground mining equipment specialist, Hermann Paus Maschinenfabrik GmbH, recently entered the roadheading market in Turkey thanks to another example of its ongoing engineering nous and customer collaboration.
The company has adapted the PSF 200 dinting machine it released over a decade ago to help a Turkey-based copper mine progress through fractured hard rock in an underground environment that would not support the standard roadheading equipment the market offers.
The PSF 200 was specially manufactured for the tough conditions in mining and tunnelling. It features a swivelling boom and plain-milling cutter for cutting and levelling floor elevations in one work step.
It is this boom and cutter that have been adapted for a roadheading production environment, according to Oliver Wilke, Area Sales Manager for Latin America, USA, Canada, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.
“Since the launch of the PSF 200, we frequently had enquiries from customers about using this as a production machine,” he told IM. “Whenever these came in, we looked at the application and the potential rock hardness. We happened to have one discussion with a copper mine in Turkey that was ready to try it, so we made the machine and put it into operation.”
The machine, like the PSF 200, has compact dimensions of circa-2,400 mm width and height, and can cut rock with a hardness of up to 80 Mpa. The articulated chassis and wide swivel range provides side coverage of around 4,500 mm, according to the company.
The adapted machine, called the PTM 200, instead of the plain-milling cutter, comes with a 1,000-mm-wide roadheader-type cutter head, a dust suppression system and a 500-mm boom extension to improve productivity. The cabin has also been modified to ensure it can be levelled and adjusted to improve the visibility of the roadheading operations.
Since commissioning last year in October, the machine has been performing well, according to Wilke.
“The main problem for the customer was they had a lot of geological problems, meaning it was not possible to put a very heavy roadheader into the mine,” he said. “They worked before with a hydraulic excavator, but this was not providing adequate productivity, so they asked if we could provide an alternative.”
The PTM 200 can navigate the machine weight requirements that are dictated at the operation – its operating weight is around 30 t – and can cut the “faulting” hard rock with ease, Wilke added.
“The customer is satisfied with it, and they are now thinking about investing in one or two more machines as they have a lot of mining faces with these same kind of geological problems where the PTM 200 could work well.”