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blasting technology Software Solutions for Better Blasting Computerized tools for designing, recording and analyzing a blast offer 3-D visualization of terrain profiles, patterns and other parameters BY RUSS CARTER, WESTERN FIELD EDITOR ware packages currently available, including those that allow pre-blast bench face profiling and post-blast analysis of fragment size distribution. Some of these solutions are modules in larger mine management packages from vendors such as Gemcom (now Geovia), Ventyx or Maptek, and others are stand-alone programs. Most are frequently updated to accommodate new technology and data-collection capabilities. Manage it, Measure it, Report it Blast design and execution — good or poor — can have significant impact on the efficiency of a myriad of downstream processes that include excavation, haulage and crushing/grinding, as well as safety, compliance and overall cost factors. Editor's Note: This article appeared previously in E&MJ.; Even though several of the examples are from hard rock mines, the technology is transferrable to coal. Surface-mine blasting technology has advanced at a steady pace, and improvements such as electronic blasting systems with vastly expanded delay-timing ranges and detonation capacities, new explosive products, and user-friendly blast-design software offer increasingly high-tech means to improve blast effectiveness. At the same time, drill rig performance and drill-string tool design have been continually refined by equipment vendors to provide the right tool for the job in almost any imaginable production drill-and-blast scenario. The irony underlying this progress is that a mine still has almost no control over one of the most dominant factors in its production sequence — the drillability and blastability of the material that has to be fragmented for processing. And not only is drill and blast planning constrained by geological and physical conditions in the pit; mine D&B; teams are also pitted against equally steady improvements in loading and haulage fleet 44 www.coalage.com capabilities, in an ongoing challenge to provide blasting results that maximize fleet and downstream process productivity — at the lowest possible cost. In fact, cost is a constant common denominator in any calculation of blasting effectiveness. Although D&B; costs typically represent only about 12% or less of total mining costs, the scale of operations at large mines presents opportunities for significant D&B; cost overruns — and conversely, sizable savings. It's important for an operation to know its actual costs for material breakage, and how they fit into the mine's overall production costs, in order to identify legitimate money-saving D&B; practices. According to a number of D&B; experts, it's surprising how many operations don't have this information, and throw money and time at D&B; initiatives that turn out to be duds. Basic considerations such as choice of explosives, maintaining intended hole spacing in drill patterns, and selection of correct delay timing are good starting points for blast-improvement efforts. Another economical approach is to employ one or more of the many blast design and analysis soft- As an example of a modular software product, the Drill and Blast module in Gemcom's Surpac suite is designed to provide the user with improved design, management and reporting of blast patterns. Features include control over individual holes, creation of pre-splits, and drilling to either a fixed elevation or a DTM surface. According to the company, the module allows users to set pattern burden and spacing by rock-mass codes stored in the polygon of a string outline, allowing greater control over a blast involving different material types. For reporting purposes, each code may have a different specific gravity. The different codes can also be assigned different drilling costs per foot or meter, allowing greater accuracy in budgeting for drill and blast and more ability to anticipate areas of higher cost. The module includes the ability to generate a firing pattern for a blast and then animate the firing sequence. Users can view the animation and subsequently make changes in both the order and firing pattern before the pattern is released. Also, said Gemcom, while users in the past may have found it difficult to calculate the true volume of a blast until after the blasted earth was excavated, the module provides the ability to create a blast solid influenced by a cone around each blast hole and trimmed to any existing free faces. Reports generated from the module can provide clear indications of what is December 2013