Breaking of coal

Abstract

New unconventional methods of coal mining have gained prominence in the past few years [I]. An important part of this research is concerned with evaluation of the various breaking methods of bringing coal into a mobile state. A new technique for breaking coal with electric discharges has been studied in terms of efficiency, controllability of parameters, and process control; the practical feasibility of this method has been confirmed in [2,3].In [4] the basic feasibility was shown of using electric pulses to estimate the breakdown voltage for rocks; the breaking of rocks as such, however, was not considered.