October 2008

Word of the month - continuous miner

A continuous miner is an electro-hydraulic machine used in underground mining which forms the tunnels required to access the coal reserves.

It has a large rotating steel drum, equipped with ‘teeth’ that cut coal and rock from the seam, load it into shuttle cars or conveyors and then install the support required to keep the tunnel open.

At Kestrel Mine these machines are five metres wide and 10 metres long weighing up to 100 tonnes; three such machines are used for development work, including mining access tunnels, around 15 kilometres per year.