Part of the Kopex Group, ZZM is already well established in Poland and has made significant inroads into markets such as China.

Over the past few years, Kopex has gained a foothold in Australia, with its subsidiary Tagor buying half of local manufacturer Inbye Mining Services which proved instrumental in the manufacturer winning the Carborough Downs longwall contract.

ZZM also late last year bought Waratah Engineering, rescuing the company from bankruptcy.

The OEM now plans to focus on Australia and China with its KSW-2000E shearer once the equipment has proven itself in other mines around the world.

Released last year, the shearer is the first model of the latest generation high-powered longwall shearers with electric haulage drive.

Since May, it has been operating at the Ziemowit Coal Mine in Poland. ZZM has tipped China as the next country to install the shearer.

The KSW-2000E longwall shearer is equipped with twin 3.3-kilovolt by 950-kilowatt cutting drum motors, a 110kW coal-sizer motor, a 45kW hydraulic pump motor and two 120kW haulage motors with a supply voltage of 1000VAC.

The total installed power of the machine is more than 2 megawatts.

New design ranging arms, haulage units and flameproof electric apparatus box have been developed for the KSW-2000E.

The 3.3kV motor supply protection includes current overload, earth leakage and earth continuity.

The haulage system and hydraulic pumps are fed from a 3.3kV to 1.0kV stepdown transformer, also equipped with safety protection systems.

The twin 120kW/1000VAC haulage motors are individually fed from 1000V variable frequency drives (VFDs), providing infinitely variable speed control and regenerative braking of the motors resulting in energy return into the electrical supply system.

ZZM said the main advantage of this was elimination of power resistors that discharge energy in the indirect converter circuit during electromagnetic braking of the motor.

“Power resistors generate heat inside the electric apparatus box and also affect heat balance of the longwall system,” the company said.

“Applying two independent VFDs provides power optimisation of the haulage system.

“Research and operating experience have shown that the meshing of the shearer traction sprocket to the AFC rack system influences the duty dynamics of the haulage system.

“Variations in the pitch of the haulage system causes imbalance between the individual drive units and leads to interaction between them. In order to reduce this, a new haulage-control system has been developed.”

Instead of employing the shearer’s central computer system, the VFDs are used to eliminate these fluctuations. This has eliminated much of the downtime previously experienced.

“Advanced regulation techniques implemented in converters with a super-ordinate regulatory system make the haulage system very dynamic, flexible and maximises the installed power,” ZZM said.

The company has designed the KSW-2000E in accordance with the requirements of the LASC system (Longwall Automation Steering Committee). Kopex signed a licence agreement with CSIRO in 2009 to use the LASC technology.

The KSW-2000E is capable of transmitting data through an ethernet, using a TCP/IP through whatever system is employed on the longwall system such as a trailing cable, optical fibre or WiFi.

The shearer operator may select a controlling source, either a remote (radio) or a local one.

Options for the shearer include an automatic mining system, ranging arm position sensors and an onboard coal sizer.

The machine is controlled via a CANBus system.

“With this arrangement the number of connections inside the electrical apparatus box has been significantly reduced and is expected to improve the reliability of the shearer considerably,” the company said.

“The central unit of the system has been designed to withstand severely adverse environmental conditions of vibration, temperature and humidity.

“The whole system was divided into so-called functional blocks including I/O local interfaces responsible for data acquisition on the longwall.”

Similar solutions based on CANBus are used in the external measurement and execution units.

The CANBus controller is connected to all the IS transducers used for measuring temperature, pressure, flow, tram speed, machine attitude and position.

ZZM said the central monitor was the most important element of the whole system. The 15-inch high-resolution monitor displays all the parameters being monitored and any machine faults.

The shearer will be fully supported with comprehensive maintenance and spare parts services.

In Australia, ZZM will use Waratah Engineering to provide service support for the shearer. Inbye Mining Services will cooperate with Waratah to promote the shearer in the market.

In the Indonesian market Waratah will provide maintenance and repair services for Kopex Mining Contractors.