Technical field

The present disclosure relates to improvements related to automated handling of expendables, such as drill rods, for a drill rig

Background

In underground mining and construction, underground drill rigs are used for performing drilling operations of different types. One common field of use for underground drill rigs is to reinforce roof and/or wall sections with reinforcement material such as rebar bolts. For performing drilling operations, the underground drill rigs require a supply of drilling expendables. A typical drilling operation when expendables are used is extension drilling, such as extension drilling in hard rock or soft rock. Despite all attempts to create safe working environments, underground mining still poses hazardous working conditions at times. The supply of drilling expendables to the drill rig presents potential safety risks when conducted manually. Furthermore, underground drill rigs are operated in increasingly narrow space confines. It is therefore desirable to replace manual work for supplying drilling expendables to the drill rigs with mechanized work by providing manipulators which provide the drilling expendables in a partly or fully mechanized fashion. However, in view of the narrow space confines in underground mining situations, previous attempts in the industry have not yet sufficiently met the demand for safe and at the same time space-saving solutions.

EP3247867B1 addresses these challenges by presenting an automated solution for handling expendables for a drill rig, such as drill steels, rebar bolts, and resin cartridges. However, the solution of EP3247867B1 does not work well for deep drilling operations that require repeated extension of the drill string by addition of more drill rods. Experiments have shown that a particular challenge is to screw the new drill rod onto the trailing portion of the previous drill rod in the bore and thus getting the threads to align and fit together.

Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide an improved automatic system for providing expendables to an underground mining extension drilling drill rig.

Summary

According to a first aspect of the invention, the above-mentioned object is achieved by a handling system for handling expendables for an underground mining extension drilling drill rig as described in the appended independent claim 1 . The handling system comprises a pickup mechanism configured to move an expendable back and forth between a magazine for expendables and a loading position within the drill rig. The magazine for expendables is not part of the claimed object of claim 1 but is comprised in the drill rig. The expendable is in the loading position aligned with a longitudinal drilling axis of the drill rig such that a drill head of the drill rig is able to engage a trailing portion of the expendable to thereby move the expendable along the longitudinal drilling axis towards an outer extreme outer position of the expendable. The handling system further comprises a first outer guide device positioned further outwards along the longitudinal drilling axis. The first outer guide device is configured to receive and guide the expendable in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis upon said expendable being fed outwards by the drill head, and configured to optionally grip and hold the trailing portion of the expendable when the expendable is in its outer extreme position. Also, the handling system further comprises a second outer guide device provided adjacent the first outer guide device between the first outer guide device and the inner guide device, wherein the second outer guide device is configured to guide the expendable in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis, to be laterally disengageable from the expendable, and to be rotatable or otherwise movable out of the way of the drill head once the second outer guide device is disengaged from the expendable.

The pickup mechanism picks an expendable, such as a drill rod, from the expendable magazine and moves it to the loading position in the drill rig. The drill head engages the expendable and moves it outwards for drilling a hole or for insertion into an already drilled hole Once the expendable has reached its outer extreme position, the first outer guide device is operated to grip and hold the expendable, wherein the drill head is operated to disengage the expendable and move back into its inner position. The pickup mechanism then picks up another expendable and brings it into the loading position. The drill head engages the expendable in the loading position and then moves it up into engagement with the trailing portion of the first expendable and rotates the second expendable such that it couples to the first expendable. Thereafter, the first outer guide device releases its grip of the first expendable and thereby allows the further outwards movement of both expendables. The process is simply repeated to add more expendables, and reversed to remove expendables one by one. Hence, the present handling system provides for automatic supply and handling of expendables to a drill rig. The second outer guide is positioned between the first outer guide device and the inner guide device such that a subsequent expendable which is to be connected to a prior expendable gripped by the first outer guide device, is first moved through the second outer guide device which gives the outer portion of the subsequent expendable a well-defined position relatively the prior expendable held by the first outer guide device. The first outer guide device and the second outer guide device together align the expendables before they are connected to each other. The provision of the second outer guide device adjacent to the first outer guide device increases the precision of the relative positioning of the expendables. Hence, damages due to misalignment of the expendables is mitigated. The second outer guide device is then moved out of the way of the drill head, thereby allowing for full-length operation of the drill rig despite the provision of such an automated supply system for expendables.

The handling system may further comprise an inner guide device positioned to receive a front portion of an expendable in the loading position and configured to optionally hold the expendable such that the expendable is guided in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis whilst the expendable is allowed to move along the longitudinal drilling axis upon being driven by the drill head.

The inner guide device holds and guides the expendable as the drill head engages the expendable, thereby reducing risk of the expendable not aligning with the first and/or second outer guide devices.

The first outer guide device may comprise a first guide screen configured to guide a front portion of the expendable into the first outer guide device as the front portion of the expendable approaches the first outer guide device.

As a front end of the expendable approaches the first outer guide device upon being moved outwards along the drilling axis, the first guide screen catches the front portion of the expendable and guides it into and through the guide device.

The first guide screen may be frustoconical.

The frustoconical shape of the first guide screen is advantageous since is provides a gradually expanding shape of the screen without hard folds in the screen, such that an expendable is smoothly guided into its intended position within the first outer guide device despite any deviations in shape of the expendable from prior use, such as a slightly bent expendable.

Also, the first and/or second outer guide device may comprise a respective through recess for receiving an expendable, wherein each through recess is laterally open with respect to the longitudinal drilling axis such that an expendable is movable into and out of the through recess through the lateral opening.

The lateral opening enables disengagement of the second guide device from the expandable by means of lateral movement of the expendable through the lateral opening.

The first outer guide device and the second outer guide device may comprise a respective guide member laterally movable into and out of the through recess, and an actuator for controlling the position of the guide member. Movement of the guide member further into the through recess limits movement of the expendable within the through recess, thereby improving guiding accuracy of the second outer guide device for expendables of different size. The guide member can then be moved back out of the central through recess to allow free movement of the expendable through the lateral opening such that the second outer guide device can be disengaged from the expendable and moved out of the way of the drill head.

The second outer guide device may comprise a second guide screen configured to guide a front portion of the expendable into the second outer guide device as the front portion of the expendable approaches the second outer guide device. As the front end of the expendable approaches the first outer guide device, the second guide screen catches the front portion of the expendable and guides it into and through the guide device. The second guide screen may be frustoconical and provided with a lateral opening.

According to a second aspect of the invention, the above-mentioned object is achieved by a drill rig system comprising a handling system as described above and also comprising said drill rig.

According to a third aspect of the invention, the above-mentioned object is achieved by a drilling vehicle, such as a cutting machine provided with a bolter, a mobile bolter, a bolter car, a bolter miner or a roadheader, comprising the drill rig system as described above.

Brief description of drawings

Fig. 1 shows a drill rig system comprising a drill rig and a handling system for expendables for the drill rig.

Fig. 2 shows an upper portion of the drill rig system also shown in fig. 1 with an enlarged portion showing two drill rods about to be connected. Detailed description

A first embodiment of a handling system for handling expendables 1 for a drill rig 2 will hereinafter be described with reference to the appended drawings. Figs. 1-2 show the handling system mounted to a drill rig 2 provided with a magazine 3 for expendables. The handling system may be sold as a retrofit solution for mounting to existing drill rigs or it may be sold as a drill rig system comprising both the drill rig 2 and the expendable handling system. Further, the technology may be provided in the form of a mining vehicle comprising the drill rig system. The description below focuses on describing the expendable handling system as such and not on the drill rig 2 or carrying vehicle.

As shown in figs. 1-2, the handling system comprises a pickup mechanism 4 configured to move an expendable 1 back and forth between a magazine 3 for expendables and a loading position within the drill rig 2. The expendable 1 is in the loading position aligned with a longitudinal drilling axis A of the drill rig 2 such that a drill head 5 of the drill rig 2 is able to engage a trailing portion of the expendable 1 to thereby move the expendable 1 along the longitudinal drilling axis A towards an outer extreme outer position P1 of the expendable 1 , shown in fig. 2. The handling system further comprises a first outer guide device 7 positioned further outwards along the longitudinal drilling axis A. The first outer guide device 7 is configured to receive and guide the expendable 1 in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis A upon said expendable 1 being fed outwards by the drill head 5, and configured to optionally grip and hold the trailing portion of the expendable 1 when the expendable 1 is in its outer extreme position P1 . Also, the first outer guide device 7 comprises a first guide screen 8 configured to guide a front portion of the expendable 1 into the first outer guide device 7 as the front portion of the expendable 1 approaches the first outer guide device 7. The handling system comprises an inner guide device 6 positioned to receive a front portion of an expendable 1 in the loading position and configured to optionally hold the expendable 1 such that the expendable 1 is guided in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis A whilst the expendable 1 is allowed to move along the longitudinal drilling axis upon being driven by the drill head 5. In other embodiments, the inner guide device 6 may alternatively be omitted, or it may already be provided as part of the drill rig 2.

The first guide screen 8 is frustoconical but may in other embodiments alternatively have any other suitable shape, such as a generally outwardly expanding shape with planar or curved segments.

The handling system further comprises a second outer guide device 9 provided adjacent the first outer guide device 7 between the first outer guide device 7 and the inner guide device 6, wherein the second outer guide device 9 is configured to guide the expendable 1 in a plane transverse to the longitudinal drilling axis A, to be laterally disengageable from the expendable 1 , and to be rotatable or otherwise movable out of the way of the drill head 5 once the drill head 5 is disengaged from the expendable 1 .

Also, each one of the first 7 and second 9 outer guide devices comprises a respective through recess 10, 11 for receiving an expendable 1 , wherein each through recess 10, 11 is laterally open with respect to the longitudinal drilling axis A such that an expendable 1 is movable into and out of the through recess 10, 11 through the lateral opening 12, 13.

The first outer guide device 7 and the second outer guide device 9 each comprise a respective guide member 15 laterally movable into and out of the through recess 10, 11 to adapt to the size of the expandable, and a respective actuator not visible in figures for controlling the position of the respective guide member 15.

Each one of the first 7 and the second 8 guide devices is rotatable about a pivot axis A1 and the rotation is controlled by a respective rotation actuator 16 as shown in fig. 1 .

The second outer guide device 9 comprises a second guide screen 14 configured to guide a front portion of the expendable 1 into the second outer guide device 9 as the front portion of the expendable 1 approaches the second outer guide device 9. In other embodiments, the second guide screen 14 may alternatively be omitted.

The second guide screen 14 is frustoconical and provided with a lateral opening but may in other embodiments alternatively have some other suitable shape.