A roadheader
(also called a boom-type
roadheader, road header machine, road header or
just header
machine) is a piece of excavating
equipment consisting of:
a boom-mounted
cutting head,
a
loading
device usually involving a
conveyor,
and
a crawler
travelling track to move the entire machine forward into the
rock face.
The
cutting
head can be a general purpose
rotating drum mounted in line or perpendicular to the boom, or can be special
function heads such as:
jack-hammer
like spikes
compression
fracture
micro-wheel heads like those on larger tunnel boring machines
a
slicer
head like a gigantic chain saw for dicing up rock, or
simple
jaw-like buckets
of traditional excavators.
