Further Development of Remote Control Outburst Mining

This report details advances made and technology trialed when remote mining was undertaken at Tahmoor. Remote mining had previously been demonstrated at Tahmoor as an alternative strategy to counter the significant risk posed by the possibility of outbursts.

This project involved the enhancement of previous systems to improve their reliability and productivity. The new technology (for underground coal mining) developed and trialed included:-

• The separate ventilation concept, as an alternative to flameproofing and/or intrinsic safety.
  
• Microwave transmission of video.
  
• Powerline carrier transmission of machine control and monitoring feedback.
  
• Availability of real time environmental data to the operators at the coal face area, via use of computers.

Trials of simulated outburst mining were successfully completed. It is proposed to utilise this system to mine actual outburst zones when they are next encountered in mine development.