EXPLOSIVES AND BLASTING
“critical first stage in fully automating the drill and
blast process”, Adam Mooney – Vice President of
Electronic Blasting Systems, Wireless &
Automation at Orica, told IM.
The system allows for groups of in-hole primers
to be wirelessly initiated by a firing command that
communicates through hundreds of metres of
rock, air, and water. This eliminates the need for
down-wires and surface connecting wires,
enabling new mining methods and blasting
techniques that are safe and reliable, Orica says.
Using low-frequency magnetic signals to
communicate with each WebGen primer before a
blast, WebGen is also the only commercial
explosives product with a Safety Integrity Level
(SIL) 3 rating, according to the company.
WebGen includes a state-of-the-art i-kon™ III
plugin detonator, a Pentex™ W booster and a
DRX™ – a digital receiver comprising a multidirectional
antenna and a battery, which serves as
the in-hole power source.
In the close-to-three-and-a-half years since
introduction, WebGen has helped fire over 800
blasts in both surface and underground mines
around the world, but, more than that, it has
changed the relationship Orica has with mining
companies.
“The elimination of wires through WebGen
allows us to get involved much earlier in the mine
planning and scheduling phases as we develop
brand-new blasting techniques that enhance
blasting efficiency and mine productivity,” Mooney
said.
“By removing constraints forced upon
customers with conventional products and
methods, we are seeing significant value unlocked
for customers in ways never thought possible.”
This has already led to the development and
implementation of seven new blasting techniques,
such as the Temporary Rib Pillar (TRP) method.
The results of using this new technique at
Newmont’s Musselwhite mine, in Ontario, Canada,
speak for themselves.
“The main ore of the panel at Musselwhite was
blasted and extracted while the WebGen-enabled
TRP held back the waste rock backfill,” Mooney
explained. “This delivered a 34% reduction of
waste dilution, increased truck fill factors,
improved ore recovery, and improved mucking
productivity by 20%.”
At the CMOC Northparkes underground mine, in
New South Wales, Australia, meanwhile, sub level
cave mining methods, enabled by WebGen,
delivered a 75% reduction of drill and blast crew
exposure time at the brow, a 96% cut in re-work, a
25% improvement in firing to schedule and a 37%
increase in drawpoint availability.
Enaex Corporate Marketing Director, Gaetan
Bachelet, thinks the company’s own wireless
electronic detonator system has acted as a
catalyst for automation.
He said the DaveyTronic ® Edge wireless
electronic detonator system “contributes to the
path to tele-operated, then fully automated
blasting operations”.
Developed in partnership with IRT Nanoelec
and the CEA-LETI, a leader in micro and nano
technology research, DaveyTronic Edge is the first
electronic detonator enabling the removal of
surface harness wires while keeping two-way
communication, according to the company.
This is a crucial safety feature, according to
Davey Bickford, the initiation brand of Enaex.
“This means that, from programming up until
firing time, you can communicate back and forth
with the detonator,” Bachelet told IM. “This
feature provides information on the detonator
location and identifies potential misfires, but,
more importantly, reports on the detonator status
at each stage of the blasting process.”
With no clipping step or cable deployment in
the implementation process, crews spend less
time on the bench, while the troubleshooting
process is eased as each detonator has its own
power source, according to Bachelet.
This means the setup time is shorter than a
conventional electronic initiation system, thereby
improving productivity.
DaveyTronic Edge can make use of drones to
add another layer of safety to the initiation
process.
“We are the first company to use a drone before
the blast as a step of the initiation process,”
Bachelet said. “It is a key enabler for this
technology with multiple benefits.”
Here, drones are used to increase safety,
operational efficiency and productivity, according
to the Bachelet.
Operators program in a flight path for the
drones factoring in the GPS locations of each blast
hole. During flight, the drones autonomously
assign the right timing to each detonator,
according to Bachelet.
“One could think that automated operations
may not be as flexible as ones performed by
The Enaex tele-operated fleet that carried out a
trial blast in northern Chile included the
RoboMiner, a cutting-edge robot developed with
SRI that manipulated boosters and detonators,
and the Mine-iTruck, a 20 ton (18 t) teleoperated
mobile manufacturing truck, to pump or auger
explosive into the bore hole
humans in case of modifications during the drilling
process,” he said. “However, based on its
available positioning data, and the integration of
engineering information, the drone could adapt, in
real time, to the situation based on the designed
blast pattern.”
Tailor-made timing
The use of an electronic initiation system, whether
wired or wireless, can help improve fragmentation
through “more accurate, interactive, tailor-made
blast timing”, Bachelet says.
BME’s AXXIS™ fully programmable electronic
delay detonator system has something to bring to
the table here.
The wired system – which offers the two-way
communication Enaex’s Bachelet says is important
for safety (between blasting box and detonators) –
can, in tandem with BME’s range of blasting tools,
help deliver improved fragmentation to miners,
according to BME’s Global Manager for Blasting
Science, D Scott Scovira.
Mines need accurate fragmentation assessment
tools to understand their site-specific conditions,
and to optimise initiation designs and loading of
blast explosives, according to Scovira.
This is where BME’s BLASTMAP™ tool comes in.
The blast design software can specify explosive
hole loads and assign hole firing times, with the
latest version including a new design tool to heatmap
initiation burden relief times.
Burden relief times are important factors in rock
fragmentation and displacement for blast
designers, according to Scovira, helping them
achieve their specific blast outcome.
“BLASTMAP, therefore, provides valuable
support in doing so,” he said.
18 International Mining | JULY/AUGUST 2020