RockFeel provides Semi-automatic wear assessment for rock cutting machines

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Rock cutting has been a well-established method of excavation both in mining and construction, especially of roads and tunnels for many years. But while automation is pushed forward at an unprecedented level nowadays, tool wear assessment remains a crucial weak point and is still performed by human inspection at precious downtime in these industries.

RockFeel is a startup from renowned Bergakademie Freiberg in Saxony, cradle of mining technology development and education for almost three centuries now. RockFeel’s core team has profound experience from different technical background and has proved itself as not just thinking out-of-the box, but also delivering robust solutions to difficult challenges in mining.

After successfully testing its name giving rock- strength-measuring-while-cutting technology prototype at various rock types and different cutting machines with renowned partners, as well as learning of the many unsolved problems of proper tool wear detection and tool life optimization in continuous (cutter) mining, with broadly varying ore types and locally fast changing rock conditions, RockFeel has developed InfraRed-Emission based Image Contour Analysis (IREICA), a fast and objective solution for semi-automatic and fast tool wear assessment for rock cutting machines.

RockFeel’s IP stack on IREICA technology is steadily developed and tested with OEM partners and is planned to be available on the first platform for sale by 2025. Assessing both type and progress of wear on cutter picks in shorter time while remaining at the safe seat, should allow for a major ramp-up in both productivity and safety when operating rock cutting machinery. With IREICA, pick wear assessment downtime is cut short and can be done with much higher frequency and objectivity than status quo, even with less experienced personnel.

RockFeel is now fine-tuning its adaptive algorithms and developing an easy-to-understand and use operator interface which allows for learning how to trust the software, which is doing the job of recognizing the shape of all picks in the IR-Videostream in a some-ten-seconds swoop while the drum is still in motion, e.g., on a short turn-around or loading pause of the cutting machine.

IREICA is overcoming odds attached to purely temperature-based assessment methods which have not been applied outside academia and does not need special lighting equipment, as tools and drum are radiating through dust as well as fog their heat generated by working the rock material. RockFeel has mastered challenges attached to the rapid movement of the picks during measurement as well as mechanical variabilities in designs and manufacturing and during machine life, to mud and dust covers and to the always changing surfaces of the tools, usually rotatable picks with hardened tips.

RockFeel has also found robust solutions to protect its sensitive equipment in one of the harshest environments of any industry, from hazards of mechanical shock and dust as well as high humidity.

Ask your OEM to partner with RockFeel to bring IREICA to your cutting platform or reach out via our Website rockfeelsystems.com if you want to boost RockFeel’s R&D as a pilot testing partner for an Add-On tailored version on your productive machine. Smart mining is beginning at the very face!

 

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