SURFACE DRILLING
Autonomy drills deeper
Paul Moore reviews the onset of autonomy in RC drilling plus the latest autonomous blasthole drilling projects and partnerships worldwide
Ausdrill Ltd Rock Commander equipped with Rock Commander Sampling and Surveying Drill Rig ( RCASS ), equipped with autosampler technology developed by Ausdrill and AutoRun
While blasthole drilling automation is now getting quite mature with rollouts and partnerships across many of the world ’ s major mines now in place from Quellaveco to Spence , Escondida and elsewhere , one area where autonomous drilling is just getting started is reverse circulation , the exploration and grade control drilling method that uses an outer drill rod with an inner hollow tube that brings drill cuttings back to the surface in a continuous flow . It is cheaper than coring plus versatile in handling both weathered near surface material as well as fresh rock .
Today , RC drilling still involves many manual elements , particularly with regard to processing the RC chip samples from the cyclone and being in proximity to compressed air , and to the mast , plus as RC is percussive – exposure to noise , dust and vibration – as well as the risk of pinch points around the rig . They are also required to manually handle some of the downhole equipment , including bit and hammer changes plus rod handling and replacement of rods with damaged inner tubes from the rock chipping plus dealing with the heavy sample bags themselves . The extent of manual input is what makes it so difficult to automate in the first place and a major reason why it hasn ’ t happened until now .
Several companies are leading the march – established OEM Epiroc and new start-up Tribe Tech Group are in the complete autonomous rig space with others such as Australia ’ s Autorun advancing in the specific autosampler area .
Epiroc gives the RC30 new smarts
First up , Epiroc comes with a lot of RC experience from the Atlas Copco and Ingersoll Rand businesses – and has been producing reverse circulation ( RC ) rigs for over 30 years now . It has provided a lot of rigs to the marketplace but had never really developed any new technology centred on the Australian market , which is one of its main target markets for RC drilling .
Cole Carpenter , Product Manager at Epiroc ’ s Drilling division told IM : “ We are starting to see the industry , especially the Tier 1 miners , look to apply technologies that have started out on our blasthole rigs – notably around automation and everything that comes with that . We have already started this process in underground exploration rigs with the recently introduced Diamec Smart 6M , but up until this project with the Explorac RC30 Smart , we really hadn ’ t pushed a lot of autonomous function into RC , so this is a first step . The reasons in applying it here are the same as in other drilling areas – safety first , more control and less ‘ live ’ work for operators across the whole process .”
The drive to do this case both from customers and internally within Epiroc . “ We actually started this Explorac RC30 Smart journey back in 2019 , with a planned release in 2020 but due to COVID- 19 there were supply chain interruptions and the launch date got pushed back ,” said Carpenter . Interestingly Epiroc has opted for a decentralised approach to the Explorac RC30 Smart production and has been coordinating with a local
manufacturing company based in Perth , Metzke , who were founded in 1978 and are now a leading designer , manufacturer and supplier of RC drilling equipment in Australia including RC and drill rig components and consumables . Epiroc has designed everything in-house in Orebro , Sweden but the fabrication and assembly is being done in Australia via close partnership with Metzke .
A number of prototype rigs have already been built through a collaboration between the engineering team in Orebro ( where there is also an Explorac RC30 Smart test rig ) and Metzke , with serial production set to be in Perth . The prototypes are now with drilling contractor Ausdrill working for a major Pilbara iron ore miner .
The Explorac 235 is the base platform . Carpenter states : “ We made a number of changes design-wise to shake up the previous design a bit and remove any bugs . While under the hood a lot of the mechanical and hydraulic systems are the same , we have really innovated on the rod handling system – it ’ s the first automated version we have had on an RC rig . We can now trip and run rods into the hole completely hands-free with an automated sequence – the arm reaches down into the magazine , picks the rod up , stabs it onto the stump and stabilises it before the complete make-up sequence and running in the hole .”
The new rig is also equipped with the latest RCS 5 technology to better align with the onboard automation . As it is an RC rig and not moving around a lot like a blasthole rig , the
10 International Mining | APRIL 2022