Heading side wall shield

1. The heading side wall shield protects the working area for the crew and machines against lumps of rock and output falling off the side wall. It is fixed through an articulate joint to the end of a roof-bar of mechanised supports, used in the exploitation of steep coal beds of considerable thickness. In particular, it is fixed to the end of the sliding part of the swivelling-sliding roof-bar by means of hydraulic cylinders. It consists of vertically-extensible plate segments that reach to the heading floor. Unique characteristics: It is equipped with a hydraulic cylinder (16) along the longitudinal axis of the shield. One end of the cylinder is fixed through an articulate joint to the top segment (1), connected to the two extensible segments (2) and (3), the middle and bottom ones. The other end is equipped with spikes (17) and mounted in the clamping ring (18) which allows it to slide. The clamping ring is coaxial with the hydraulic cylinder and mounted in the top part of the top segment (1). On both sides of the hydraulic cylinder (16), it is equipped with a roof-bar extender, positioned symmetrically with respect to the longitudinal axis (4). Each extender is fixed to a pair of slings (21) which allow it to swing. The slings are fixed in the plane that is perpendicular to the front surface of the sliding part of the roof-bar (33), which faces the side wall. The spring (28) with regulated tension is fixed to the bottom of the roof plate (24) of each roof-bar extender and to the front surface of the sliding part of the roof-bar (33), which faces the side wall.