Development of mineral deposits located at significant depth may be carried out by means of vertical shafts. Shaft sinking technology usually requires a number of works to be carried out, including the selection of appropriate excavating techniques adapted to geological and hydrological conditions, including natural hazards. The production technology and the machines used determine the level of sinking costs and execution period. The article discusses the excavating technologies currently used across the world. Then the assumptions, concept and construction of a new generation of shaft sinking system were presented. The proposed new solution of the system and the excavating technology allow for parallel execution of key processes related to winning, loading, transport and shaft wall-side lining, which significantly increases the progress of sinking. The shaft sinking system was created by scientists from AGH in cooperation with KOPEX – Przedsiębiorstwo Budowy Szybów S. A. and Instytut Techniki Górniczej KOMAG.

Steel yielding arch support constructed of V profiles is commonly used to protect galleries and, in some cases, to reinforce or secure a shaft support. For this purpose, a closed, circular-shaped arch support is used, with arches overlapped by clamps that are typical for this type of construction. The support has high resistance to the impact of even (distributed over the entire surface of the support) load, however, as a result of significant deformation associated with a change in the radius of the curvatures, the support shows limited yielding capacity. This is due to the increase in resistance to slide on the locks, resulting from changes in the geometry of the ring caused by the rock mass. This article presents the results of research and analysis concerning the elements of the arch support with notches in arches. The research team tested the effect of the depth and location of the notches of the section’s flanges on the load impacting on the clamp’s bolts and the strength of the roof support. Moreover, the tests covered the influence of the number and location of clamps in a frictional joint on the change in the nature of work and yielding capacity. Finally, the research included both strength tests of the support’s elements, as well as strength analyses based on the finite element method.

The iron ore mine owned by the state concern of Luossavaara – Kiirunavaara AB-LKAB state concern has several mining skip shaft hoists for drawing iron ore. Despite using modern systems to secure the travel of these hoists in line with the Swedish regulations, units intended for the emergency breaking of vessels must be used in the so-called free travel paths in the tower and in the shaft sump. The paper discusses the main requirements that, in accordance with the Swedish regulations as regards the operational use of mining shaft hoists, must be met by devices of this type and a solution was proposed for a structure design of the braking unit for the mining shaft hoist installed in the B-1 shaft in the Kiruna mine. The frictional braking system in the form of moving bumping beams was decided to be used in the said hoist, developed in the Cable Transport Department in the University of Science and Technology in Krakow. The action of moving bumping beams consists in these beams, placed at the beginning of free travel paths, not only braking the rushing hoist vessels but also (with the integrated units for vessel capture) performing the function of grips. They secure the vessels against falling down into the shaft after the finished braking process. The advantage of such a solution is that the structural elements: the guiding shank of the tower, the head of the vessel and the bumping beams, transfer many times lower values of dynamic forces at the time of the strike of the vessel against the moving bumping beams when compared with dynamic forces arising at the time of the hit of the vessel against the fixed bumping beams. In the process of designing moving bumping beams, braking simulation is an important stage conducted with a computer program developed in KTL AGH. This program enables the modelling of load-bearing and balance ropes as flexible elements with elastic and suppressing properties. The results of these simulations, especially in the scope of the achieved braking deceleration of the vessels, the values of braking distances and forces in the load-bearing ropes are crucial in confirming the correctness of the assumed concept of the emergency braking system. The braking units in the form of moving bumping beams have been executed by the Polish company Coal-Bud Sp. z o.o. and are now being integrated in the tower and in the shaft sump of the B-1 shaft of the Kiruna mine in Sweden.

The aim of research was creation of a furnace for aluminum alloys smelting “in a liquid bath” in order to reduce metal loss. In the paper,

the author demonstrates the results of research on smelting of aluminum alloys in a shaft-reverberatory furnace designed by the author. It

has been shown that smelting aluminum alloy in a liquid bath was able to significantly reduce aluminum loss and that shaft-reverberatory

design provided high efficiency and productivity along with lower energy costs. Ensuring continuous operation of the liquid bath and

superheating chamber, which tapped alloy with the required texture, was achieved by means of the optimal design of partition between

them. The optimum section of the connecting channels between the liquid bath of smelting and the superheating chamber has been

theoretically substantiated and experimentally confirmed. The author proposed a workable shaft-reverberatory furnace for aluminum

alloys smelting, providing solid charge melting in a liquid bath.

Electro-dynamic passive magnetic bearings are now viewed as a feasible option when looking for support for high-speed rotors. Nevertheless, because of the skew-symmetrical visco-elastic properties of such bearings, they are prone to operational instability. In order to avoid this, the paper proposes the addition of external damping into the newly designed vibrating laboratory rotor-shaft system. This may be achieved by means of using simple passive dampers that would be found among the components of the electro-dynamic bearing housings along with magnetic dampers, which satisfy the operational principles of active magnetic bearings. Theoretical investigations are going to be conducted by means of a structural computer model of the rotor-shaft under construction, which will take into consideration its actual dimensions and material properties. The additional damping magnitudes required to stabilize the most sensitive lateral eigenmodes of the object under consideration have been determined by means of the Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion.

In this paper, the author derives theoretical formulae for calculating of squeezing forces. This report is the first one concerning the method of forming stepped shafts by longitudinal cold rolling. The formulae of the radial squeezing forces for the final passage of longitudinal rolling were calculated under the Huber hypothesis of plastic deformation and maximum shear stress.

This work presents an innovative shaft-lining solution which, in accordance with a patent of the Republic of Poland, allows successive, periodic leaching of excess rock salt migrating to the shaft opening. As is commonly known, all workings in rock salt strata are exposed to an increased convergence of sidewalls, making it very difficult to use shafts properly. Rocks migrating towards the shaft opening cause very high stress on the shaft liner. As a result, if the lining does not show substantial deformability, it fails. Lining failure due to insufficient deformability has been extensively described in the literature. Also, throughout the history of mining construction, a number of solutions have been proposed for different types of lining-deformability enhancement. For instance, the KGHM mining corporation applied a deformable steel lining – a solution used in the mining construction of galleries – along a 155-m-long section of the SW-4 shaft with diameters of 7,5 m that passes through a rock salt strata. At KGHM, the SW-4 shaft passes through a rock salt strata along a section of 155 m, in which a deformable enclosed steel lining was made. After several years, the convergence of shaft sidewalls stabilised at a rate of 0.5 mm/day. This enormous activity of the rock mass made it necessary to reconstruct the entire shaft section after only four years. According to further predictions, it will be necessary to reconstruct this section at least four times by 2045. This paper discusses in short form the underlying weaknesses of the technology in question.

As a solution to the problems mentioned above, the authors of this work present a very simple design of a shaft lining, called the tubing-aggregate lining, which utilises the leachability of salt rock massifs. The essential part of the lining is a layer of coarse aggregate set between the salt rock sidewall and the inner column of the tubing lining. One the one hand, coarse aggregate supports the salt rock sidewall and is highly deformable due to its compressibility, but on the other hand it allows water or low saturated brine to migrate and dissolve salt rock sidewalls.

This paper presents the first stage of works on this subject. Patent No. PL 223831 B had been granted before these works commenced.

Based on the analysis of the LIDAR terrain Digital Elevation Model (DEM), traces of opencast and underground mining of iron ore mining were located and classified. They occur in the zone of ore-bearing deposits outcropping on the north-eastern and north-western bounds of the Holy Cross Mountains. The DEM of an area covered by thirty-six (36) standard sheets of the Detailed Geological Map of Poland on a scale of 1:50,000 was thoroughly explored with remote sensing standards. Four types of ore recovery shafts with accompanying waste heaps were classified. The acquired data on the extent of former mining areas, covered with varying shafts and barren rock heaps could make a basis for distinguishing, according to historical data and in cooperation with archaeologists, the historical development stages of today’s steel industry. According to general knowledge, the iron industry in Europe instigate dates from the Roman times, in the Ist century BC to the IVth century AD, throughout the earlier and the late medieval times, up to the most recent the 1970ties. The usefulness of the LIDAR method has already been amazingly confirmed in archaeological researches worldwide. Many discoveries of ling forgotten, even large entities resulting from human activities in Asia and Central America especially were discovered owed to the LIDAR DEM. Also, traces of human settlements from various historical periods were discovered that way in Poland. The applicability of DEM based on LIDAR data is, in geological studies of surficial geodynamic processes and in geological mapping in Poland, rather contested.