What would you call this mining vehicle? (Ural-20R, used in mining)

Question

On the image below is a mining machine produced by the Kopeysk Machine-Building Plant. I'm not sure how to call it in English. The Russian name is "prokhodchesko-ochistnoy kombain".

Multitran offers the translation "heading and winning machine", but I'm not sure: when I enter this term in Google, it finds predominantly Russian-based websites.

The machine is used for underground mining. This particular model is mentioned in a text I'm translating about an overpricing row between the Russian potash producer Uralkali and the machine-building plant.

I found the company's description of the machine:

The «Ural-20R-00» heading-and-winning machine is designed for longwall operation in сhambers and driving of oval-arch shaped workings in potash ore seams with thickness of 3.0-3.7 m at dip angles of ± 12° and rock resistance to cutting of up to Аp=450 H/mm.

Fred · Accepted Answer

The machine is nothing like a longwall miner. Longwall mining machines are limited in how they operate. A wall of shields protects the face being cut while a shearing head runs along the face cutting coal, dropping coal onto a short conveyor belt running parallel to the face. That conveyor belt then drops the coal onto another conveyor belt running perpendicular to the face being cut. As the longwall face is cut, the shields slowly advance forward. Also, longwall miners cannot produce curved tops to excavation; they can only produce flat topped excavations.

The machine in the question is more like a road header. They are used to mine postash and other soft stratified deposits like salt. If needed, they can produce excavations with curved profiles. The machine in question may have purposely been designed & manufactured to mine a particular type of potash.

Chuck · Answer

Generally speaking, I would say it looks like a "boring machine," but you might clarify that it's a "coal" boring machine or a "potash" boring machine. Specifically, it looks like some kind of a hybrid between a longwall miner and a continuous miner, the longwall having a toothed drum whose face is in-line with the direction of the track and the continuous miner having a toothed drum perpendicular to the track.

Answered by Chuck on December 18, 2020

What would you call this mining vehicle? (Ural-20R, used in mining)

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