Air Decking to Increase Fragmentation in Blasting
Better Air Decking using the Saver Plug, offers a reduction in fly rock, vibration, drilling costs, and the volume of explosives used in blasting. It is used across all sectors of the mining industry, including underground horizontal hole blasting. Increased fragmentation and cast percentage is achieved with the same or reduced Powder factor. All of […]
How to Find Old Abandoned Mines
Abandoned mines are a recurring problem for today’s mining industry. In coal, metal, and nonmetal mining they pose a safety hazard if current workings intercept them; and if they are circumvented, large amounts of recoverable resources may be unnecessarily left in the ground. The problem of delineating the boundaries of these old mines is multifaceted. […]
Bucketwheel Suction Dredging
Bucketwheel Suction Dredges however would tally less than one hundred throughout the world. The Neumann Group have produced 11 units and Ellicott, IHC Holland and O. & K. Germany have produced various models. Some of the reasons there are so few Bucketwheel Suction Dredges are:- It is a relatively recent development. The problems associated with […]
Secondary Blasting
The Henderson Mine is a large underground panel cave molybdenum mine located near Empire, Colorado. Secondary blasting requirements have varied from one shot per 27 tonnes (30 tons) to one shot per 900 tonnes (1,000 tons) of ore. Geology, structure, cave abutment loads, and location of the ore in the column all affect the amount […]
Paste Backfills Types
The basic rule for a material to have paste fill flow properties is that it has at least 15 wt% of its particles finer than 20 microns. This generally ensures that the material has the required colloidal properties and is not self draining. What this means is that the material, when mixed with sufficient water […]
Shaft Sinking and Ramp Excavation
Mine planners and engineers are often faced with the decision of choosing which method of underground access is best suited for their particular requirement. Underground access can be provided by a shaft, ramp, adit, or slope for either exploration and/or actual production operations. The selection of the type of opening required to explore a new […]
Optimal Design of Mining Panels for Truck Shovel Operations in Large Open Pit
In the planning phase, the entire surface area is usually divided into mining panels which are later mined and reclaimed with a particular sequence. Panel dimensions and their relative orientations affect in-pit waste haulage distance, stripping ratio, production efficiency, and facility layout. Generally, for the same production rate of coal, reduction of panel width will […]
Wood Crib Design & Mine Roof Support
Objective: To minimize support costs and to improve ground control by improving wood-crib design and utilisation through the development of engineering methods that will match the placement and performance of the wood cribs to the load conditions imposed by the mine environment. Background: While wood cribs are used extensively to stabilize mine openings, their utilization is often […]
Haulage Truck Bumper Design
The extended Haulage Truck bumper was developed to provide protection to the operator in the event of a rear-end collision between trucks. This protection is necessary because the outcome of a rear-end collision between trucks often results in the rear-end of the dump body of the forward truck penetrating the cab area of the rearward […]
Rock Drag Cutting
The Bureau of Mines, in its continuing efforts to improve productivity and enhance the workplace environment of hard-rock underground mines, has investigated mechanical excavation techniques and in particular drag cutting techniques to achieve these goals. Two fragmentation techniques that use drag cutters have found some success in the mining industry: the kerf-core technique and, the […]