GOLDEN Equipment Company may not appear to be a likely candidate to win orders from one of the US's largest surface coal mining giants, but that doesn’t mean it can't.
Navajo Coal Mine in New Mexico, which boasts an annual production of more than 8.5 million tonnes recently commissioned the Volvo Construction Equipment dealer to construct a unique, custom-made drill truck to meet its coal drilling requirements.
Golden Equipment called on Volvo’s in-house experts to help with providing the parts and assemblies to create a solution that would fix Navajo’s problem of getting drills on top of a coal seam, setting them up quickly and being able to move them around the seam efficiently. The end result is a truck that is more mobile and much faster than a crawler drill.
It is the second time Golden Equipment Company has created a machine of this type for the customer.
"In 1994 we custom fabricated a machine like this for the Navajo mine and it performed so well that we were contracted to build a new one," Lisa Guinn, Marketing Manager at Golden Equipment Company, said.
That truck — which is still in service — and the latest version share the same general design elements: an extended Volvo articulated hauler frame, with powerpack/drilling components from a rotary drill rig. The new truck was delivered to the mine in late June for a month’s testing and break-in before being put into production.
The new version comprises a Volvo A25E 6x6 articulated hauler chassis, stretched at Volvo Construction Equipment’s factory in Sweden to include a 5-ft-longer-than-standard wheelbase, along with a 5-ft extension to the afterframe. Volvo also installed a cab large enough to include a reversible operator's seat with dual controls mounted front and back, allowing the operator to control the drill from inside the cab and to drive the truck while facing in either direction.
The drilling powerpack is from an Atlas Copco DML rotary drill rig, and the twin mast assemblies are Atlas Copco units normally used for water-well drilling.
This set-up allows the Navajo mine to drill two five-and-a-half-inch-diameter blast holes at a time — 23ft deep and spaced roughly 20ft apart. The whole drilling process takes just 45 seconds once the drill is in position and the overall speed of the process allows the mine to drill about 850 coal blast holes per shift.
The extended truck frame and cab are factory options that allow the majority of the truck's systems such as engine, drivetrain and suspension to remain completely stock-standard. Golden Equipment fabricated the platform on which the drill equipment is mounted and all of the various accessory brackets and other components needed to complete the installation.
Safety features such as walkways, equipment cover latches and other items were installed in accordance with the mine’s requirements. The truck will be equipped, by the mine, with a Leico Geosystems GPS location system to provide accurate drill hole placement.
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