LVA Software

LVA Software

LVA is a software app that monitors, displays, analyses and reports on important data from your longwall. LVA stands for Longwall Visual Analysis. LVA has been in development since 2016 and is currently running live on nearly all Australian longwalls. Operators use the software for instantaneous feedback on longwall pressures and conditions, Geotech engineers also like the longer-term views of the 3D and load cycle data, maintenance personnel like the ability to see poorly performing supports, and managers like the ability to have a quick overview of production and general conditions. The emailed alerts with daily snapshots are also very popular.

Operating modes

•  Live mode for real-time display of your longwall performance.
• Historical mode for reviewing past data.
• Any number of users can run LVA on their desktop or laptop for live
  views of their longwall data.
• View selected LVA data via web browser.
• Server/User/Viewer modes let you control who can modify layouts
  and settings.

Summary of features

• Any number of users can see the longwall data live on their desktop.
• Managers or Group employees can see multiple longwall sites over the network, including from head office.
• Show 2D & 3D visual representation of longwall leg pressures, shearer position, system pump pressure, DA ram, LAS cycle times, shearer pitch and roll angles with floor profile changes, gas concentrations. Show shield heights if instrumented, and top coal caving data if applicable.
• Trending of supports showing leaking legs, calibration issues, yield counts, set-to-roof cycles, loading rates, cycle durations, time weighted average pressures (TWAP).
• Automatically read daily chainage data from spreadsheets.
• Data can be displayed versus time or chainage.
• An alerting system continuously monitors for many operational triggers including the risk of weighting events and roof cavities forming (Cavity Risk Index).
• Emailed alert messages and images for many conditions such as daily snapshots, weighting events, high rates of yielding, high or low pressure regions.
• Load cycle maps showing data versus shears (1 row of data per shear for a whole panel), including TWAP, yields, low set pressures, loading rates, calibration, leaking and cycle durations.
• Overlay your longwall data onto AutoCAD mine plans.
• Live LVA images can be made available via web browser using the Weblink feature.

Displays and analyses

• 2D and 3D images for trending and visualisation of the status of your longwall.
• Algorithms identify set-to-release cycles and shears across the face, and calculate related data
  such as yield events, loading rates, sensor calibration issues, and leaking legs.
• Several gauges can be configured to give advance warning when there is a high risk of cavities forming, or when high weighting is developing, as well as snapshots of low set pressures, set-to yield times and roof stability.
• Alert messages can be issued and emailed when certain conditions are triggered.
• Longwall data for a panel can be overlaid onto mine maps.
• Comprehensive display and reporting options.
• Most graph images can be copied or saved, or exported as data tables.

3D - Multiple Displays

3D graphs show data across the face and back in time. Data can be shown Raw or Smoothed, with shearer path overlaid. This image shows leg pressures, loading rates and yield frequencies for 7 days. The time span can be set between 1 hour and 30 days.

3D Graph

3D image of leg pressures over 36 hours, with shearer path overlaid

Data Overlay

Overlay longwall data onto mine maps as either picture files (e.g. jpg or png), or AutoCAD DWG files.

Load Cycle Maps

Load Cycle Maps show a summary of data across the face over an extended period of time. Each horizontal row of pixels represents a complete shear across the face. This image shows leg pressures, loading rates and yields per cycle across the face for 1916 shears over 300 days. The time period can be the entire panel or any subset of a panel.

3D with Shearer Speed

3D image of leg pressures over 36 hours, with shearer path overlaid and coloured depending on shearer speed.

Floor Profile

3D graphs showing calculated changes to the floor profile along with data for shearer pitch and roll angles over a 24 hour period.

Face Scan

Face Scan images show a snapshot in time across the face. Normally this shows the current Live values, but you can scroll back and forth to any time since the start of the panel. Also shown are set pressures, loading rates, DA ram stroke and LAS cycle times.

Scan Maps

Scan maps show a detailed history of data scans across the face. This image shows data across the face every 30 seconds for several hours. The time span can be set between 1 hour and 30 days.

Trending

Screenshot of LVA configured to show a series of gauges across the top, with a snapshot across the face at top right, and trending of leg pressures for shield 47 along with shearer position, set pressures, when shields were set to the roof, and trends of some of the gauge values. The panel at left shows stats data for the highlighted cycle on the trend graph including issues such as yielding and leaking.