Classifications

• • E—FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS
  • E21—EARTH OR ROCK DRILLING; MINING
  • E21B—EARTH OR ROCK DRILLING; OBTAINING OIL, GAS, WATER, SOLUBLE OR MELTABLE MATERIALS OR A SLURRY OF MINERALS FROM WELLS
  • E21B19/00—Handling rods, casings, tubes or the like outside the borehole, e.g. in the derrick; Apparatus for feeding the rods or cables
  • E21B19/08—Apparatus for feeding the rods or cables; Apparatus for increasing or decreasing the pressure on the drilling tool; Apparatus for counterbalancing the weight of the rods

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a feed beam for a rock drill, comprising a body portion made of a light metal profile and slide guides of a more wear- resistant material secured thereto, the slide surfaces of the carriage of the rock drill or the cradle of the feed beam being slideable relative to the feed beam as they bear on said slide guides.
• Feed beams in rock drilling apparatus have con ⁇ ventionally been manufactured of either steel plates or steel profiles, by welding or rolling the steel into a profile of a desired shape.
• U.S. Patent 3 650 576 discloses an arrangement in which U-shaped slide guides are mounted inside a drill guide feed shell, within which the slide parts of the rock drill carriage are disposed.
• the U guides are secured to the guide feed shell with clamping bolts clamping the lower edge of said U guides towards the guide feed shell when the bolts screwed into the fixing bodies and passed through the apertures bored in the guide feed shell are tightened.
• This arrange- ment is rather costly to produce and, moreover, sev ⁇ eral bolts must be used for fixing the slide guides in order to retain them properly in place.
• the replacement of the slide guides requires a lot of work, and on account of the shape of the fixing means they are rather cumbersome to mount in place.
• Swedish Published Specification 444 346 dis ⁇ closes a solution in which projections of the shape of the slide guides are provided in the beam profile in the longitudinal direction of the profile, and the slide guides are made at least in part of spring steel their inner surface being shaped to have the cross- section of the outer surface of the projections pro ⁇ vided in the profile.
• the slide guides are mounted by sliding them towards the projections in the profile, in which situation they yield upon entry and are retained in place by spring force.
• the drawback with this arrangement is that the outer surface of the slide guides is gradually worked up while the guides are subject to stress, and thus they may be detached from their fixture with time.
• the dimen ⁇ sioning of the slide guides must be very accurate in order that they may be mounted and retained in place.
• British published application 2 216 440 dis- closes an arrangement in which slide guides of square cross-section are secured in V-shaped grooves provided on the main body of the beam, by disposing within the slide guides retaining members to which a fixing bolt is secured through the body of the beam so as to make the retaining members clamp the slide guides against the body of the beam.
• This arrangement is rather com ⁇ plex and requires a considerable number of pairs of bolts and retaining members in order for the slide guides to be secured to the body of the beam rigidly and immovably enough.
• this arrangement adds extra weight to the body of the beam, and fur ⁇ thermore the machining required is rather costly. Fur ⁇ ther, replacement of the slide guides is quite cumber- some and time-consuming.
• the feed beam for a rock drill according to the present inven- tion is characterized in that longitudinal grooves are provided in the body portion for the slide guides thereof, the cross-section of said grooves narrowing at least at one point towards the surface of the body portion, and that the slide guides are of a cross-sec- tion enabling them to be mountable in their groove and respectively removable therefrom only in the longitud ⁇ inal direction of the body portion.
• grooves having the longitudinal direction of the beam are provided in the beam profile either upon extrusion or subsequent to extrusion by machining in all the necessary slide surfaces; preferably slat-like slide guides being insertable into said grooves so as to be retained in place by the shape of the profile and the grooves and being restrained from projecting out from their grooves.
• each slide guide can be inserted from the end of the profile and easily secured in place with fixing screws at one or both ends of the feed beam or by fixing to the feed beam end pieces restraining the slide guides from sliding in the Ion- gitudinal direction of the feed beam.
• Figure 1 is a schematic representation of a feed beam with rock drill
• Figure 2 is a schematic representation of a cross-section of the feed beam of the invention.
• Figures 3a and 3b are schematic representations of another cross-section of an embodiment of the feed beam of the invention.
• Figure 1 is a schematic side view of a feed beam 1 of a rock drill, slidably attached in its longitudi ⁇ nal direction to a cradle 2.
• a rock drill 4 rotating a drill rod 5 in a manner known per se, is mounted on the other side of the feed beam 1 by means of a car ⁇ riage 3 slidably relative to the feed beam 1.
• the devices and power units needed to produce the move ⁇ ments between the drill carriage and feed beam and respectively the feed beam and cradle are in general fully known as such, and it is not considered neces- sary to explain them more closely in this connection.
• Figure 2 shows a schematic cross-section of the feed beam of the invention.
• the body portion 6 of the feed beam 1 is produced by extrusion from aluminium or some other light metal composition, the cross-section of the body portion 6 being configured for example as shown in Figure 2.
• grooves 7a and 7b for slide guides are simultaneously provided on both sides of the body portion 6, and respectively grooves 8a and 8b for the slide guides of the cradle on both sides thereof.
• grooves 7a, 7b and 8a, 8b are shaped to be of dovetail cross- section so as to be at their narrowest at the surface of the body portion and to expand inwardly from the surface of the body portion 6.
• the essential thing is that the cross-section of the grooves narrows at least at one point towards the surface of the body portion 6.
• the slide guides 9a and 9b of the drill carriage 3 are inserted into grooves 7a and 7b, and respectively the slide guides 10a and 10b of the cradle are in ⁇ serted into grooves 8a and 8b, in the longitudinal direction of the body portion 6.
• the trapezoidal cross-section of the slide guides 9a and 9b and 10a and 10b enables tight fitting thereof in the grooves 7a and 7b and respectively grooves 8a and 8b, so as to restrain them from working out of their grooves to ⁇ wards the surface in the transverse direction thereof, but enabling their insertion into the grooves and re ⁇ spectively drawing out therefrom only in the direction of the surface, that is, in the longitudinal direction of the body portion 6.
• the slide surfaces of the carriage 3 (or in a rock drilling apparatus with no cradle the slide surfaces provided in the body of the rock drill), which are typically provided by separate slide members 3a, make contact with the outer surfaces of the slide guides 9a and 9b, and respectively the slide surfaces of the cradle 2, which are typically also provided by separate slide bodies 2a, make contact with the outer surfaces of the slide guides 10a and 10b.
• Slide guides 9a and 9b and 10a and 10b being con ⁇ structed of steel, they are very wear-resistant, and thus the feed beam 1 will slide readily relative to the cradle 2 and respectively the carriage 3 of the rock drill 4 will slide readily relative to the feed beam 1.
• slide guides 9a and 9b and respect ⁇ ively 10a and 10b are sufficiently worn, like the slide bodies 3a and 2a of the carriage and cradle in a manner known per se, all of these components can be replaced in a simple way.
• the slide guides 9a, 9b and 10a, 10b can be readily drawn out of the grooves of the body portion 6 and replaced with new slide guides by pushing new slide guides into the grooves in the longitudinal direction of the body portion 6.
• the slide guides 9a and 9b and 10a and 10b can be secured to the body portion 6 for example by means of fixing screws 11a and lib shown in Figure 2 by way of example.
• the fixing screws are screwed into the body portion 6 through apertures provided in one end of the slide guides 10a and 10b, thus re ⁇ straining the slide guides 10a and 10b from sliding in their longitudinal direction.
• all of the slide guides 9a and 9b and 10a and 10b respect ⁇ ively can be secured in this way by screws either at one end or both ends, if so desired.
• Figure 3a shows an alternative embodiment for the feed beam of the invention.
• grooves 17a, 17b and 18a, 18b having a T-shaped cross- section are provided in the body portion 6 of the feed beam; these grooves are milled into the beam profile after extrusion of the profile.
• weakening indentations 6a can be pre ⁇ liminarily provided in the body portion 6 as shown in Figure 3b, thus facilitating the milling of the T groove.
• flat slide guides 19a and 19b and respectively 20a and 20b are inserted into the T groove from the end of the body portion 6.
• slide guides 19a, 19b and 20a, 20b are secured in place by mounting end plates 21 at the ends of the body portion 6 of the feed beam, said end plates retaining all the slide guides 19a, 19b and 20a, 20b in place.
• the slide guides can be easily replaced by removing the end plates 21 and slipping the pertinent slide guides out and thereafter inserting new slide guides in their place.
• the slide members 3a fixed to the carriage 3 of the rock drill 4 are con ⁇ structed to have a height enabling them to extend to the surface of the slide guides 9a and 9b without the body of the carriage 3 otherwise contacting the body portion 6 of the feed beam.
• the slide members 2a of the cradle are similarly dimensioned.
• slide guides are used having a thickness that allows a service life, with regard to wear, at least as long as the service life of the body of the feed beam in use.
• slide guides of a thickness of e.g. 3-5 mm can be employed and secured in place for instance by the means set out above.
• the slide guides can be secured in their grooves for example by clamping the edges of the grooves towards the body portion to provide a tight crimp connection and press fit between the guide and the body portion.
• the body portion can have varying cross-sections depending on the rock drill and applications employed.
• the cross-section of the slide guides and respectively the cross-section of the grooves provided in the body por ⁇ tion 6 can be widely varying, as long as the slide guides are insertable into the body portion in the longitudinal direction thereof and restrained from movement away from the body portion 6 outwardly in the transverse direction, either by means of V-shaped pro ⁇ jections or other obstructions provided by the shape of the groove.
• the slide guides can be fixed in their longitudinal direction immovably relative to the body portion in a variety of ways, such as by means of various cotter joints, crimp connections, sealing com ⁇ pounds, glues etc.
• the slide surfaces of a rock drilling apparatus denote both the slide surfaces of a carriage fixed to a rock drill as shown in Figure 1, and an arrangement in which the body of a rock drill is constructed to be integral so as to be mountable to slide along the feed beam without a separate carriage, in which case the slide surfaces are provided in the body of the rock drill for instance in a corresponding way as in the carriage constructions that are typically used today, or in any other suitable way.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Geology (AREA)
• Mining & Mineral Resources (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Environmental & Geological Engineering (AREA)
• Fluid Mechanics (AREA)
• General Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Geochemistry & Mineralogy (AREA)
• Earth Drilling (AREA)

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Publications (1)

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Cited By (2)

Citations (6)

• 1992
  • 1992-09-24 FI FI924284A patent/FI91436C/fi not_active IP Right Cessation
• 1993
  • 1993-09-02 WO PCT/FI1993/000349 patent/WO1994007000A1/en active Application Filing
  • 1993-09-02 AU AU49616/93A patent/AU4961693A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1993-09-10 ZA ZA936691A patent/ZA936691B/xx unknown

Patent Citations (6)

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