US 4,261,119 AGranted

Method for digging and transporting material

AssigneeMitsubishi Mining & Cement Co., Ltd.

InventorsMasaaki Kubo, Yasutaka Onodera, Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Masaharu Sibata

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Abstract

In digging and hauling soil, rocks, minerals and the like by the use of a dragline the invention provides a novel combination of said dragline, a conveyor for hauling the materials dug, and a hopper disposed over and movable along the conveyor whereby material may be efficiently excavated and transported out of the working area.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A method of digging and transporting soil and sand, rocks and stones, minerals or the like by the use of a dragline including a bucket means for digging and carrying said soil, rocks, minerals, or the like, a boom means suspended for swinging movement therewith, a bucket control means for controlling said bucket means, and a boom control means for controlling the swinging movement of said boom means, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) fixing a first hopper means at a predetermined location straddling a first conveyor means for transporting the material dug, said hopper means being shiftable along the conveyor means and adapted to receive the dug material as carried in the bucket means by said dragline and load the material onto the conveyor means;
(b) positioning said dragline at such a location that the dug material in the bucket means may be dumped from right above said hopper means;
(c) digging soil, rock, minerals, or the like and loading the material dug onto said hopper means by operating said bucket control means and boom control means at said location, and performing such digging and loading operations in a like manner with said boom means positioned at its various swing positions, as required;
(d) thereafter shifting said hopper means by a certain distance along said conveyor means and fixing it in place;
(e) carrying out the step (b) and (c);
(f) repeating the steps (d) and (e), as required;
(g) installing a second hopper means and a second conveyor means generally parallel to and with a predetermined spacing away from said first hopper means and first conveyor means on the dug surface which has been worked by the first dragline in conjunction with the first hopper and conveyor means;
(h) positioning a second dragline at such a location that the dug material loaded in the bucket means of said second dragline may be dumped from right above said second hopper means;
(i) performing said steps (c) to (f);
and
(j) successively digging the preceding dug surface n like manner, as required,
the improvement wherein the digging operation is performed using a plurality of draglines, hopper means and conveyor means and wherein the material dug by the dragline installed on the lowermost dug surface is dumped from said dragline directly over the already worked site of the lowermost dug surface rather than being carried away from the working area, the material dug from one or more dug surfaces higher than the lowermost dug surface by the associated draglines and hauled by the associated conveyor means is collected into a separate conveyor means, the site worked by said dragline installed on the lowermost dug surface is filled up with said collected dug material.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

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Abstract

(a) fixing a first hopper means at a predetermined location straddling a first conveyor means for transporting the material dug, said hopper means being shiftable along the conveyor means and adapted to receive the dug material as carried in the bucket means by said dragline and load the material onto the conveyor means;
(b) positioning said dragline at such a location that the dug material in the bucket means may be dumped from right above said hopper means;
(c) digging soil, rock, minerals, or the like and loading the material dug onto said hopper means by operating said bucket control means and boom control means at said location, and performing such digging and loading operations in a like manner with said boom means positioned at its various swing positions, as required;
(d) thereafter shifting said hopper means by a certain distance along said conveyor means and fixing it in place;
(e) carrying out the step (b) and (c);
(f) repeating the steps (d) and (e), as required;
(g) installing a second hopper means and a second conveyor means generally parallel to and with a predetermined spacing away from said first hopper means and first conveyor means on the dug surface which has been worked by the first dragline in conjunction with the first hopper and conveyor means;
(h) positioning a second dragline at such a location that the dug material loaded in the bucket means of said second dragline may be dumped from right above said second hopper means;
(i) performing said steps (c) to (f);
and
(j) successively digging the preceding dug surface n like manner, as required,
the improvement wherein the digging operation is performed using a plurality of draglines, hopper means and conveyor means and wherein the material dug by the dragline installed on the lowermost dug surface is dumped from said dragline directly over the already worked site of the lowermost dug surface rather than being carried away from the working area, the material dug from one or more dug surfaces higher than the lowermost dug surface by the associated draglines and hauled by the associated conveyor means is collected into a separate conveyor means, the site worked by said dragline installed on the lowermost dug surface is filled up with said collected dug material.

9 more elements