Underground » Mining Technology and Production
The industry priorities of improved safety, productivity, and efficiency of underground roadway development processes are all able to be satisfied with the development of an industry acceptable self-drill roof bolt.
There are several self-drill roof bolt concepts and prototypes that have been trialled in the industry. This technology allows for a chemically anchored pretensioned, fully encapsulated installed bolt. The technology aims to allow for the self-drill rock bolt installation to be fully automated.
This first stage of the project followed two previous ACARP projects, trialling the automated self-drilling bolt installation in an underground environment. The aim was to develop a semi-automated system for underground roof bolt installation, that can be retrofitted to current continuous miners, improving safety, productivity and efficiency of roadway development.
With success of this stage, this project is being continued to progress the development of the technology to industry acceptable reliability, compact sizing, and ability to inject chemical as quickly as practicable.