Between Jan 25 and Feb 05, 2010, Sandvik's rock cutting competence center at Zeltweg, Austria presented what is probably the worlds largest and most powerful mobile underground mining machine to potential customers from Canada, USA, Poland, Russia, Germany and the UK.
The Borer Miner MF420 weighs in at 250 tonnes. The total installed power is 1550 KW (2000 HP)
This machine is the first of a total of seven units to be supplied to the Canadian potash producer PotashCorp between April2010 and April 2011.
During the prototype tests, the machine had cut a 10m long tunnel through a specially erected concrete block of 10 x 10 x 10 metres size.
After the cutting test, the machine was facing a new challenge:
For the first time ever, cutting was to be filmed from the rocks perspective. To make this possible, a large ice block was built on the entrance of the test tunnel. the austrian-based company ICEANDART was contracted to design and build this ice wall.
