Sandvik has unveiled the DL422iE battery-electric top hammer longhole drill, which produces zero emissions for a healthier underground mining environment.
The fully automated drill features an electric driveline system that eliminates diesel emissions while tramming.
By reducing overall emissions and fuel costs, less harmful fumes will enter the working environment.
The drill also uses automation and teleremote for drilling during shift changes and breaks.
This is enabled through Sandvik’s Platinum drilling automation package, which provides continuous and automated production drilling.
Combined with the i-Class iSOLO drilling control system, Sandvik stated that productivity was increased and accuracy improved when drilling fans and parallel longholes.
The unit can increase drilled metres per shift by up to 10 per cent, and productivity by up to 20 per cent, through improved equipment usage.
It is also capable of drilling vertical and inclined fans and single or parallel Ø89-127 millimetre longholes up to 54 metres in depth.
Batteries used by the DL422iE can be charged during drilling, while electric power can be drawn from the supply system in the mine’s network.
The drill is mounted on a C400E four-wheel drive frame steered carrier and also provides access to drill plan management at the user interface, helping to ensure one-hole automation drilling to a pre-set depth.
It is also equipped with MySandvik remote monitoring and can be integrated with AutoMine and OptiMine, providing multi-unit control and fan-to-fan remote tramming.
Miners that choose to equip the machine with an automatic bit changer can conduct autonomous drilling of complete fans.
The Sandvik DL422iE is the company’s second battery-driven underground drill, suitable for underground mass mining in four by four metres or larger production drifts.
Sandvik plans to release a full range of battery-tramming rigs covering all underground drilling applications by the end of the year.
This move is amplified by the announcement of the Electric Mines Consortium in March, of which Sandvik was a founding member.
The consortium encourages the use battery electric vehicles to provide safer solutions for the industry, and was founded by major miners and mining equipment, technology and services (METS) companies.