Drilling Rig, Mobile

movable equipment for the mechanized drilling of blastholes and drill holes in underground mines. Mobile drilling rigs are manufactured for rotary drilling with electric drills in rock of less than average hardness; for rotary-percussion drilling with special drilling machines in average and hard rock; and for percussion-rotary drilling with core hammer drills in rock of any hardness. Drilling rigs are equipped with long-feed, cable-piston, chain, or screw drives, which make possible the drilling of blast and drill holes to depths of 2.5 m with one boring bit, thus reducing the time of auxiliary operations.

Drilling rigs are used during the sinking of shafts and at the working faces for ore breaking in the chambers. The latter type has several boring machines (up to four) and drill faces of great height (down to 12 m). A drilling rig for horizontal mine drilling consists of a platform with pneumatic, wheel-and-track, or caterpillar drive, on which is mounted one or several hydraulic or screw manipulators with automatic power feeds and drilling machines installed on them. The drilling rig is held by rail clamps (for rigs with wheel-and-rail drive) or by hydraulic jacks. Self-propelled drilling rigs, which are equipped with one or two hammer drills having independent tool rotation, have been designed for drilling blastholes 60-70 mm in diameter down to depths of 50 m. Drilling rigs that consist of a folding frame fastened to the face with jacks have been developed for drilling the faces of vertical mine shafts. After the face has been drilled, the frame is hoisted to an overhead rack.

Drilling rigs are replacing low-output manual drilling and are preparing the way for fully-automated multimachine boring of blastholes and drill holes.