Published in September 2009 Australian Longwall Magazine

Released 10 months ago, Alfabs is currently building its third Bolt Overhead and Rib rig and has platforms operating at Solid Energy’s Huntly East mine in New Zealand, Anglo Coal’s Grasstree mine and BMA’s Broadmeadow mine in the Bowen Basin. A unit is also being installed at Centennial Coal’s Angus Place operation.

BOAR offers mines their own choice of bolting rig to fix to the platform’s bolting turret and allows the rib, roof and face to be bolted from the same platform. The drill can also move in a whole quarter sphere, whereas previous models only moved on one plane.

“QDS bolters are made for secondary support and need to be agile, that is why we produced our bolter with its movement of rig to allow the operator to bolt in tight spots. It can also insert the new Hilti single pass bolt and we have worked with Hilti and Joy to make sure this happens,” Alfabs business development manager Andrew Brook said.

The main challenge was the safety element.

“When you have a rig with the movement that this has, training, operational risk assessments and signage need to be second to none so that the operator is aware of pinch points and any potential hazards,” he said, adding the rig conformed to all Australian Standards and MDGs for hydraulics and mobile plant.

The BOAR platform is 3m long by 2.4m wide and is about 1.8m high. The maximum pressure for the hydraulics is 210 bar, with a maximum flow rate of 200 litres per minute.

Alfabs currently has two units in its hire fleet.