STOCK MACHINERY

Coal stock machines are used during the last stage of coal mining: mining – transport – stocking. Stacking machines create the coal stock and reclaimers and scrapers take the coal off the stock.

Stacking machines have no shovel or buckets – they consist of a hopper and one or more conveyors. Reclaimers take coal off the stock predominantly by means of buckets, usually connected either to a wheel (such as bucket wheel excavators) or to a bucket chain (like bucket excavators). The material is continuously loaded onto conveyors transporting it directly to the point of stock material consumption. Reclaimers handle mined bulk material, which is why their construction is lighter and production consequently easier in comparison with excavators of the same capacity. Scrapers are of a similar construction to reclaimers, but instead of buckets they have scraper bars, which do not shovel the material but only scrape it onto conveyor belts.