Equipment

Common Types Of Mining Equipment

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Mining is one of our most vital industries due to the use of mined minerals in almost every consumer and industrialized product. To support our growing consumerism, mines are found in all 50 states, including Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Eastern and Southeastern California.

Learn more about the most common mining equipment, the types of mining, and what mining looks like when working with Empire Cat.

THE TOP TEN MACHINES AT THE MINES

Learn about the equipment that makes surface or underground mining operations run smooth.

    Large Mining Trucks

    • To move materials around a mine site, workers need heavy-duty trucks. Also known as off-highway trucks, large mining trucks include both powerful mechanical models and environmentally friendly electric drive models.

      Unlike conventional trucks, these mining vehicles have extra-large tires to support the heavy loads over uneven terrain commonly found around surface mines.

      Additionally, these trucks can carry high payload capacities to accommodate the need for moving weighty mined minerals or ore out of the site. Large mining trucks also need to perform in the most extreme conditions — cold, heat, heavy dust, high altitudes, and steep slopes while hauling heavy loads.

      Common applications of these off-highway vehicles include:

      • Moving materials at surface mines.
      • Hauling materials up steep slopes.
      • Carrying up to a 400-ton payload.
      Hydraulic Excavators

      • Sometimes called hydraulic mining shovels. The models used today often employ hydraulics for moving the shovel to power through tough materials.

        Overall, excavators have similarities in their designs. Most have a base with either tracks or wheels atop which the pivoting cab sits. The pivoting action allows the operator to access material in a circle around the shovel without moving significantly. An articulated arm holds the shovel, both of which the operator controls from inside the cab.

        Applications for hydraulic mining shovels include:

        • Moving earth or mined materials.
        • Digging.
        • Scooping material into a loader.
        • Removing rock or dirt, also known as overburden, from surface mines to open the site.
        • Transporting some mined materials.
        Large Dozers

        • Large mining dozers move materials easily around a mining site. Plus, the choice of wheels or tracks increases the types of surfaces dozers can operate on.

          Additional attachments can even increase a dozer’s capability for the following applications:

          • Building mine sites by pushing the surface material away to expose the ground beneath.
          • Maintaining a mine site by pushing dirt away from working areas.
          • Reclaiming the land around mining sites.
          • Ripping plant matter out of the ground.
          • Raking the land around a mine site.
          Electric Rope Shovels

          • Instead of using hydraulics to control the movement of the shovel at the end of the arm, electric rope shovels use a series of pulleys and ropes. Unlike hydraulic shovels, these models use electric operation, allowing for highly efficient performance over time.

            Electric rope shovels mimic hydraulic excavators and have the following applications:

            • Removing overburden to prepare a mine site.
            • Digging through hard materials.
            • Moving earth.
            • Removing boulders.
            • Transferring mined material to a loader.
            • Transporting material.
            Rotary Drill Rigs and Rock Drills

            • Rotary drill rigs create holes through rock or soil, allowing placement of charges for blasting open mines. A rotary drill rig is one of two main types of drills used for mining. The other type is a percussion or hammer drill. For a rotary drill rig, the drill bit turns under pressure to cut into the rock. As the bit turns, the rock grinds down while compressed air sends it back up the drill to the top to keep the hole and bit clean.

              Ideally, rotary drill bits create holes that range from 6 to 22 inches in diameter and average 30 to 60 feet deep. In some cases, miners will use rotary drills to dig holes up to 150 feet deep and as shallow as 15 feet.

              Hammer rock drills use pressure to create holes in the ground. To keep the hole clean, compressed air blows dirt out of the way to allow the bit to always strike new ground. Hammer drills with the piston located outside the hole (OTH) typically drill smaller holes of 5 inches or fewer in diameter.

              Rotary and rock drills have the following uses:

              • Creating holes for blasting charges for surface mining.
              • Production drilling to make wells.
              • Presplit rock drilling.
              • Expanding mines.
              Motor Graders

              • Mines rarely have ready access to roads. Even those near major roadways still need roads built within the area for moving material and hauling mined goods out. Motor graders are used for surface operations around mines to create and maintain these roads.

                When hauling minerals, ore, or other mined materials along roads, things like debris or ponding water can slow vehicles. Motor graders ensure the roads have the necessary grading and adequate drainage. By maintaining the integrity of roads used for transporting the material around and out of the mining area, motor graders play a vital role in ensuring the efficiency of the mine’s operations.

                Common uses for graders include:

                • Pushing surface material to clear roads.
                • Creating proper grades to allow water to drain away from roads.
                • Constructing haul roads.
                Large Wheel Loaders

                • For picking up and quickly moving material across a mining site for loading into trucks, nothing matches the versatility of large wheel loaders. Sizes vary from compact to large. As the wheel loader’s size increases, its bucket capacity and load handling also goes up. Matching the wheel loader’s handling capabilities for both volume and density of materials at the mine is crucial to ensure the machine will hold up to the rigors of daily use without premature wear.

                  For Cat wheel loaders, the compact models work best with light materials and have a bucket capacity of 2 cubic yards. However, large models can handle iron ore or rock and can hold up to 38 cubic yards of rock in the bucket.

                  Typically found at surface mines, large wheel loaders can take on many tasks, such as:

                  • Loading materials onto trucks for transport.
                  • Digging.
                  • Supporting jobs of other loading and transport vehicles on-site.
                  Draglines

                  • Draglines are large excavators with a bucket supported by ropes and wires at the end of a boom. Lowering the bucket and scraping it along the ground collects overburden or mined material. Swinging the bucket at the end of the dragline around repositions it to dump its contents into a specified location.

                    Surface mining heavily uses draglines. These excavators have numerous functions, including:

                    • Moving tons of overburden to prepare a surface mine.
                    • Removing exposed material, such as tar sand, from a strip mine.
                    • Reducing emissions compared to other overburden removal methods.
                    • Cutting into high wall surfaces and removing material.
                    Wheel Tractor Scrapers

                    • Wheel tractor scrapers have a design similar to motor graders. However, the scrapers typically have an attached bin that collects the material removed from the ground’s surface rather than pushing it to the side as a grader does.

                      To operate the scraper, the driver uses controls inside the cab to raise or lower the bin to the ground. When on the ground, the edge of the bin scrapes the ground materials, which feed directly into the bin. When filled, a vertical flap holds the material inside the bin, so it does not spill during transport. At the deposit location, the bin tilts and opens in the rear to empty the scraped dirt.

                      Applications for scrapers include:

                      • Building roads.
                      • Making initial cuts into the land for a mine.
                      • Reclaiming land.
                      • Performing mining operations.
                      Underground Mining Loaders and Trucks

                      • Underground mining trucks and loaders require specific operating parameters to function in confined spaces. Additionally, these vehicles cannot produce emissions in the enclosed environment of a mine. Therefore, standard trucks used for surface mining will not suffice for underground work.

                        Mining trucks and loaders for underground operations have specially built engines that do not produce emissions but still have enough power to move tons of rock.

                        For these machines, their capabilities include:

                        • Digging.
                        • Loading rock or mined material into trucks.
                        • Transporting material to the surface.
                       
                      Types of Mining and Their Respective Equipment

                      Mining can happen at the surface or underground. The environment and type of material mined dictates the form of mining required and the equipment used.

                      Both surface and underground mining have three main steps. The first is extraction, which involves drilling, blasting, or digging to remove materials from the mine site. Second is material handling or sorting and loading materials to either go to a waste area or the processing site. The final step involves material processing: grinding, separating, crushing, refining, and smelting mined ore or other goods at an off-site plant to turn them into finished products.

                      Surface Mining

                      There are three main methods for surface mining:

                      • Quarrying can refer to cutting blocks of hard stone, such as granite for building, or to extracting gravel, crushed stone, and sand.
                      • Open-Pit mining requires creating a large pit in the ground extracting materials like silver from the earth. This includes removing a hilltop with rotary drills and explosives to expose the rocky materials beneath.
                      • Strip mining extracts thin layers of coal from near the surface. It starts with removing large strips of surface material, known as overburden, outside the mine site. After extracting mined products from the initial strip, the new hole will hold future overburden. Contour striping uses shovels or dozers to remove strips of overburden around terrace hills. Area stripping uses draglines or scrapers for flat suffices.
                      Off Highway Truck at mine

                      Underground Mining

                      Minerals, ore, metals, or other goods located deep underground require different techniques and tools of removal depending on the rocks. Underground mining includes automating processes and using no-emission vehicles to preserve miners’ safety. 

                      • Room & Pillar mining creates pillars of ore to support the ceiling as they dig out the rest of the desired material from the space. 
                      • Retreat mining follows room and pillar mining until mining completes in the room - removing pillars for their ore content to maximize material recovery.
                      • Blast mining uses explosives to loosen hard rocks and open mining spaces from underground or surface mines.

                      DIG WITH EMPIRE

                      Serving mines in Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Eastern and Southeastern California

                      Empire is committed to partnering with mining companies across the Southwest by providing innovative equipment solutions, service and support you can count on to meet the unique challenges mining sites face on a daily basis.

                      Learn more about how we serve the growing mining industry.

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