As the core leading equipment in underground mine production, shearers have a highly integrated electrical system with complex components, making fault diagnosis difficult. Maintenance challenges have long plagued the industry. Adhering to the principles of practicality, intelligence, environmental protection, and energy efficiency, FRECON Electric has collaborated with coal enterprises to develop and build intelligent test benches. These provide accurate data support for the maintenance and remanufacturing of shearers, fully ensuring the stable and reliable operation of the equipment.
The shearer is the core equipment for coal mining in underground mines. It has a compact overall structure and a specific function, mainly consisting of a cutting part, a traction part, an electric motor, a machine body, and auxiliary devices. The cutting part is responsible for coal breaking and loading, being the core working component; the traction part controls the moving speed and direction of the equipment; the electric motor provides power for the entire machine, adapting to underground explosion-proof working conditions; the machine body carries various components, and the auxiliary devices include systems such as spray dust reduction and anti-skid protection, which work together to realize continuous underground coal mining operations.
The working principle of a coal mining machine is concise and efficient: After starting up, the motor provides power for the entire machine, and the traction unit drives the equipment to move slowly along the working face. The drum of the front cutting unit rotates at high speed, using cutting teeth to cut and break the coal body, and pushes the crushed coal into the scraper conveyor. During operation, the spray device synchronously reduces dust to protect the underground environment. The equipment adjusts the traction speed and cutting height in real-time through the control system, and cooperates with the advancement of the hydraulic support to achieve continuous and stable underground mechanized coal mining, with a high degree of automation throughout the process, ensuring safety and reliability.
As a core production equipment in underground mines, the shearer has long been operating in harsh underground working conditions with high dust, high humidity, and strong vibrations. Moreover, the electrical system of the entire machine has a high integration level and complex control circuits. The traditional maintenance mode has pain points such as difficulty in fault location, low detection accuracy, and insufficient control over repair quality, making it difficult to ensure the stable operation of the equipment after it is put back into service.
To solve the above-mentioned industry challenges, in response to the needs for standardization and intelligentization in the maintenance and remanufacturing of shearers, and combined with the essential requirement for performance testing of frequency converters—the core traction control components—this intelligent test bench research, development and application project is launched based on existing technologies and industrial cooperation foundations. The aim is to comprehensively improve the quality of shearer maintenance and remanufacturing as well as the operational reliability of equipment.
After adopting the FRECON FR500A vector frequency conversion control, the equipment has sufficient starting torque and precise and stable speed regulation, which can well adapt to the complex working conditions of the shearer. It effectively reduces mechanical impact, prolongs the service life of the whole machine, and reduces the frequency of shutdowns. The comprehensive protection and intelligent diagnosis improve the operational safety, and at the same time, the energy-saving effect is remarkable, enabling the shearer to achieve more stable, reliable, and economical long-term operation after maintenance and remanufacturing.
In summary, after standardized maintenance and remanufacturing, and equipped with intelligent frequency conversion control technology, shearers can effectively improve operational stability and reliability, reduce impacts and faults, and achieve energy conservation and efficiency enhancement. The supporting intelligent test bench ensures the accuracy of maintenance, enabling the equipment to serve underground coal production more safely and economically.
