The 8-meter high cutting height intelligent shearer with the largest installed power in China has recently completed underground transport and pit-entry operations at China Shenhua’s Bulianta Coal Mine. Weighing 235 tonnes and cutting 2,700 tonnes of coal per cut, the shearer is a core piece of heavy equipment for efficient mining of ultra-thick coal seams.
This underground transport task was the largest and heaviest heavy-lift underground transport operation carried out by Shendong Coal in recent years. Two special transport vehicles were used for coordinated towing, and the entire operation was completed in seven hours. The transport route has a total roadway length of 8,000 meters, including a 2,800-meter ultra-long downhill adit with a 5.4° gradient. Braking loads under heavy-duty conditions were high, and the risk of vehicle slippage was significant. In addition, there was only one passing bay along the entire route, making vehicle-passing scheduling extremely difficult. Faced with these complex conditions, Shendong Coal adhered to safety bottom lines and standard operating procedures. Four-wheel-drive low-speed mode was adopted throughout the transportation. A safety distance of more than 100 meters was strictly maintained between vehicles traveling in the same direction, and brake-cooling duty points were set up along the route to prevent brake-system overheating and failure. The operation adopted an innovative organizational model of “staggered departures, sectional passage, and real-time dispatching,” precisely controlling the pace and sequencing of work to ensure safe, stable, and continuous heavy-load transport.
The high-power shearer was independently developed by Shendong Coal in collaboration with domestic coal machinery equipment enterprises, setting a new record for the installed power of domestically produced shearers. The equipment is adapted to full-seam single-pass mining technology for ultra-thick coal seams and integrates intelligent functions including memory cutting, automatic height adjustment, remote monitoring, and intelligent fault warning, significantly improving mining efficiency and operational safety.
