With the reduction in mining capacity due to the long-term exploitation of thick ore bodies in the world at present, the mining industry has just focused on mining of thin ore bodies. To improve recovery rate, reduce production costs and ensure stable production for thin ore bodies, new mining processes and equipment must be developed.
A pneumatic bucket loader plays the key role in mechanizing difficult and arduous loading operations in the mining industry. In particular, developing a small bucket loader is an important task for mechanizing loading in small pit faces with unfavorable working conditions.
A loader should be designed to meet the following basic requirements: First, it should be kept to a minimum in overall and operating dimensions, while providing a reasonable capacity of the bucket to ensure enough productivity. Second, all components must be simple in structure and convenient for operational maintenance to ensure operational reliability. Third, the pneumatic consumption and working pressure of the loader should be lowered.
To meet these requirements, it is important to select a suitable working mechanism and determine its optimum structural parameters for satisfying required working indices by minimizing the loader and maximizing its capacity.
Kim Hyok Chol, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, analyzed the performance of a bucket loader using a pneumatic cylinder as a hoisting mechanism, and conducted a research to minimize its work height and output during hoisting.
He built a mathematical model of the working mechanism by analyzing the motion trajectory of the bucket’s end point and determined optimum structural parameters of the working mechanism for smooth operation in a narrow work face by lowering the bucket loading height to 1 600mm using the MATLAB optimization tool.