ABSTRACT
Draglines (walking excavators) are widely used in opencast mining. However, the area of their effective use is relatively small and is reduced to the excavating of horizontal and flat coal seams, which makes it possible to use draglines on a transportless (non-transport) scheme of mining with a dumping of the internal spoil (rock dump). In this case, the cost of extracted coal is significantly reduced due to the fact that the costs of rock transportation are completely eliminated.
Currently, more than 100 walking draglines of various sizes are operating in the Russian Federation open pits. Almost all of them are machines of domestic production. The main Russian manufacturer of draglines is the Uralmash plant which produces draglines of a wide range of standard sizes: bucket capacity up to 65 cu.m, boom length up to 130 m.
In addition to domestic draglines, the market presents walking excavators manufacturers «NKMZ», «Komatsu Mining», «Caterpillar», etc. Analysis of their parameters shows that their main characteristics are quite comparable with each other, but excavators are significantly different in terms of boom and A-frame design. The difference in design leads to limitation of possible use of draglines as modular units due to peculiarities of the above mentioned nodes.
