Roof support chocks

Joy Mining Machinery is the world’s leading manufacturer of underground mining machinery (www.joy.com).

In the UK at their Worcester & Wigan sites the main focus is on longwall mining systems and in particular the roof support chocks and associated central control computer systems.

Each chock has its own control system which interfaces with the central control computer and the longwall mining cutter. The chock is given high level instructions and then ‘walks’ at given times to support the roof which has just been undercut

Up to 250 roof support chocks can operate at anyone time so a complex set of movement algorithms are used which are specifically tuned to the geology of the mine.

E2L’s role in this project was initially to improve the performance of the individual controllers by optimising the primitive codes embedded in the FORTH operating system. Since 2000 E2L have been involved in maintaining the central control system in PLM/2, migrating the software to other platforms and software languages and providing upgrades, software support, mine specific configurations, and foreign language versions.

The project is still ongoing.