Our Lab Facilities
Our School has equipment and machinery for the following:
- Rock Mechanics
- Excavation Engineering
- Mine Ventilation and Climate Control
- Noise and lighting
- Digital Photogrammetry
- Mine Design and Computing
To complement these laboratories, our workshop is capable of meeting all the School's requirements for the design, manufacture and maintenance of teaching and research equipment.
The Rock Testing Laboratory is probably the best equipped in the Southern Hemisphere and comparable with those at any university world wide. Facilities include sample preparation, equipment for uniaxial compressive and shear testing and a 3000 kN, triaxial servo-controlled test machine with temperature control. This last item, which was purchased in 1985 at the cost of R1 million, was upgraded in 1994 at a further cost of R1,5 million. Undergraduates are now able to familiarise themselves with all aspects of rock testing and to understand the properties and mechanisms involved in rock fracture (a most important consideration for deep-level mining).
Research and postgraduate teaching also makes use of high speed photography in studying the detonation of explosives, while the recent acquisition of a set of White Industrial Seismology seismographs now allows students to study the effect of blasting on the environment and the potential of damage to structures.
Laboratory classes are conducted to investigate the fan laws, the use of fans in series and parallel and the principles of air cooling. Equipment includes a Newtech Mine Ventilation Educator, a purpose built variable speed centrifugal fan (built to our design by Howden Fans) and a Hilton Air Conditioning Teaching Unit.
A modified Butler shaping machine is used to demonstrate to students the basic concepts of rock and coal cutting. Groups of three or four students participate in laboratory exercises throughout the 3rd year under the supervision of post graduate or 4th year students. The shaping machine is used to demonstrate such aspects as the depth of cut and the cut spacing on cutting forces. In addition the students determine the efficiency of cutting by calculating specific energy requirements of various changes to cutting characteristics.
The main modification to the shaping machine is the incorporation of a tri-axial dynamometer that resolves the pick force into three component forces. The dynamometer sends signals via an amplifier to a computer from which graphical plots and average forces experienced during a cut are obtained.
The photo (left) shows a coal block, encased in concrete to prevent disintegration and weathering of the coal, positioned on the shaping machine platten prior to a test. A point attack pick is mounted on the dynamometer.
Since all surveying within the University is service taught by the School of Mining Engineering, equipment for practical classes is held and maintained in the Survey Store. This contains a large collection of standard instruments (levels, theodolites, etc) transferred from the Department of Surveying in 1990, together with specialised mine surveying equipment purchased since then.