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Journal of Mining Sciences

2026 year, number 2

Use of AFE Rectifier with Chopper Control for Performance Enhancement of Mine Dragline

Manikandan Ponnusamy1, P.A. Gowrisankar2
1Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Government Polytechnic College, Namakkal, India
2Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Knowledge Institute of Technology, Salem, India
Keywords: Dragline, active front end rectifier, Ward Leonard control, discrete control, analog control

Abstract

For many decades, most of draglines in overburden removal in open pit coal mining used analog control under Ward Leonard method. The conventional analog control is therefore digitalized to improve efficiency, reduce the power consumption and provide low-maintenance operation instead of completely replacing the dragline. Even though digitally retrofitted Ward Leonard gives more efficiency compared with analog control, there is no major change in maintenance cost or breakdown cost. This paper proposes implementing the Active Front End rectifier with DC chopper control in old analog Ward Leonard control dragline in place of digitally retrofitted Ward Leonard control. The proposed control technique is analyzed as a case study for a digitally retrofitted dragline in Indian coal mine, and a comparative study is done with the proposed system in terms of technical and economic aspects.