During underground mining operations in coal mines, the main equipment closely matched with the coal mining machine is the scraper conveyor and hydraulic support. For continuous conveying equipment underground, common ones include scraper conveyors and belt conveyors. In subsequent chapters, a special introduction will be given to belt conveyors. This chapter only sorts out and analyzes the brands of scraper conveyors and hydraulic supports.

For foreign brands, Caterpillar, Komatsu from Japan, Eickhoff from Germany, Sandvik from Sweden, and Famur from Poland mentioned in "Brand Collection 7: Coal Miners" all have their own matching scraper conveyors and hydraulic supports. Therefore, this chapter will not provide a detailed introduction to foreign brands, but only provide an overview of domestic brands and our current situation.

Scraper Conveyor

Scraper conveyor is a continuous transportation machine with a flexible traction mechanism. Although there are some application scenarios in the transportation of bulk materials on the ground, the main usage scenario is the underground coal mining face. On the one hand, it plays the role of coal transportation, and on the other hand, it can also serve as the running track of the coal mining machine and the pushing support point of the hydraulic support, and can hang cables, water pipes, etc.

There are various classification methods for scraper conveyors, including single chain, double chain, double center chain, and triple chain according to the number of chains and arrangement; According to power size, it is divided into light, medium, and heavy.

Chinese scraper conveyor factories mainly include: Zhangjiakou Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., Ningxia TianDi BenNiu Industrial Group Co., Ltd., Linzhou Heavy Machinery Group Co., Ltd., Shanxi Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., Shandong Mining Machinery Group Co., Ltd., Jiangsu TianMing Machinery Group Co., Ltd., etc. Among them, the product advantages of middling coal Zhangjiakou Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd. and Ningxia TianDi BenNiu Industrial Group Co., Ltd. are relatively obvious.

In 1964, China's first flexible scraper conveyor SGW-44 using four link chains was successfully developed at Zhangjiakou Coal Machinery Factory, achieving continuous transportation of scraper conveyors. In 1974, the first SGW-150 side double chain scraper conveyor used in China's fully mechanized coal mining face was successfully developed at Zhangjiakou Coal Machinery Factory. It was used in conjunction with the coal mining machine and hydraulic support, enabling the mechanized operation of the coal mining face from mining, transportation, support to pushing.

In June 2023, the complete set of intelligent scraper conveyor equipment for the 10m super high mining face independently developed by TianDi BenNiu was successfully put into operation. The transportation capacity of this equipment can exceed 8000 tons/hour, and the theoretical coal throughput exceeds 100 million tons, filling the gap in the transportation equipment for the 10m super high mining face, providing technical support and equipment guarantee for the continuous and stable production of coal energy in China.

For conventional scraper conveyors, the entry threshold for many factories is relatively low, which can lead to vicious competition for a certain period of time. If enterprises want to build their own brand, they need to start from the actual situation of the mine site and improve themselves through technological innovation, brand promotion, service upgrading, and other aspects.

In terms of equipment materials, technology research and development, enterprises also need to put in effort. For example, for heavy-duty scraper conveyors, key materials such as intermediate plates and chains used in the middle slot still heavily rely on imports, resulting in domestically produced products always lagging behind foreign products; Although friction clutches, speed couplings, and automatic telescopic tail are used, due to insufficient data collection and analysis in working condition monitoring, the equipment cannot truly meet the requirements of automatic control.

The future scraper conveyor will not only develop towards heavy-duty, automation, and intelligence, but also produce scraper conveyors that can meet the mechanized comprehensive mining process of thin coal seam working faces, in order to completely solve the long-standing situation of outdated equipment, low mechanization procedures, low work efficiency, and poor economic benefits in thin coal seam mining in China.

Hydraulic Support

Domestic production plants of hydraulic support mainly include: Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group Co., Ltd., middling coal Beijing Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd. (affiliated to middling coal Equipment), PingDingShan Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., Ningxia TianDi Support Equipment Co., Ltd., Shanxi PingYang Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd., Shandong Energy Heavy Equipment Manufacturing Group Co., Ltd DaJiang Heavy Industry (Jiaozuo) Co., Ltd., Shandong TianSheng Coal Mining Machinery Co., Ltd., LinZhou Heavy Machinery Group Co., Ltd., and ShanNeng Equipment. Among them, although ZhengMei Machinery, BeiMei Machinery, and PingMei Machinery have certain advantages in product manufacturing, efforts are still needed in brand building.

China began the research and development of hydraulic supports in the early 1970s. Over the course of more than 50 years of development, many domestic enterprises have made outstanding contributions from foreign introduction, digestion and absorption to rapid development.

In 1984, Zheng Meiji successfully developed a hydraulic support for top coal caving; In 2005, we took the lead in developing and producing a 5.5m high mining hydraulic support, breaking the comprehensive monopoly of international coal mining giants on China's high-end coal mining equipment; The intelligent hydraulic support with a super high mining height of 10 meters, successfully developed in 2023, has the highest support height and working resistance in the world. This equipment will be applied to the super high mining face of Caojiatan Mining in Shaanxi Coal Mine, with a working face length of 299.5 meters and a strike length of 6000 meters. It is expected that after being put into use, the annual production of raw coal will exceed 20 million tons.

In 2023, XuKuang Group East China Machinery Company independently developed a hydraulic support for ultra-thin coal seams with a thickness of 0.6 meters, filling the gap in comprehensive mechanized mining technology for this ultra-thin coal seam, and achieving mechanized, intelligent, and unmanned mining of ultra-thin coal seams.

Hydraulic supports have become the core equipment of coal mining faces. With the rapid development of new processes, technologies, materials, methods, and computer technology, the development of hydraulic supports in China also needs to make new achievements in shaping international brands.

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