The authors focus on the process of potash ore production by a mechanized method. They show that currently there are no approved procedures for assessing the performance of heading-and-winning machines operating in the conditions of potash mines. This causes difficulties in determining the field of application of heading-and-winning machines, complicates the search for implicit technical solutions for the modernisation of existing models of mining units, prohibits real-time monitoring of the stability of stope-based technological processes and makes it difficult to assess the performance of the services concerning mining enterprises. The work represents an aggregate assessment of the performance of heading-and-winning machines for potash mines by determining complex indicators describing the technological and technical levels of organising the work in stopes. Such indicators are the coefficients of productivity and energy efficiency, respectively. Experimental studies have been carried out in the conditions of the potash mine of the Verkhnekamskoye potassium-magnesium salt deposit to assess the performance of the latest and most productive Ural-20R heading-and-winning machines manufactured in Russia. Using the above methodological approaches, this paper shows that the unsatisfactory technological performance of the studied machine is due to the low productivity of the mine district transport. The average productivity coefficient was 0.29. At the same time, high values of the energy efficiency coefficient show that the productivity of the machine is on par with design conditions.
The creation of modern machines and improvement of existing designs of rock cutting bodies of combines is constrained by the lack of experimental studies of the process of separation of successive elementary cleavages during the potash ore cutting with cutters of winning machines. The potential of the cross cutting pattern of potash ore is shown, since the formation of zones of localization of weakening and induced fractures on the surface of layer-by-layer cutting face determines the separation of the elementary cleavages with stable geometric parameters. The verification of the conclusions obtained theoretically was carried out during laboratory tastings on a specially designed bench. The research procedure provided for comparative tests of the potash block ore cutting, staggered and cross cuttings. It has been proven that the use of the cross pattern for set cutting parameters makes it possible to reduce the specific energy costs of the cutting of potash mass, to reduce the average load on the cutter, to reduce the root-mean-square deviation, and to reduce the number of fractions that are hard to enrich in the crushing products, compared to the traditional staggered cutting pattern.
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