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Quarrying and Open Pit

Mining
Finding the Best
Combination
Large quantities of raw material
are produced in various types of
surface operations. Where the
product is rock, the operations are
known as quarries. Where metallic
ore or non-metallic minerals are
involved, they are called open pit
mines. There are many common
parameters in design and choice of
equipment, and in the process of
finding the best combination of
drilling and blasting methods.
Atlas Copco has the advantage of
long experience in all types of sur-
face drilling operations, with a
product range to match. With its
history of innovative engineering,
the company tends to think for-
ward, and is able to advise the user
on improving design elements of
the operation that will result in
overall cost savings.
Quarries
A quarry is a factory that converts solid
bedrock into crushed stone. The exca-
vated rock is crushed, screened,
washed and separated into different
sizes, for subsequent sale and use. The
amount of fines should be kept to a
minimum. The final products are used
as raw material for chemical plants,
such as limestone for cement manufac-
turing, paper and steel industries, and
clay shales for building materials, or as
raw material for concrete aggregates,
highway construction, or other civil
engineering projects.
Not all types of rock are suitable as
raw material for crushed stone. The
material must have certain strength
and hardness, and the pieces acquire a
defined shape with a rough surface.
Consequently, soft sedimentary rock,
and material which breaks into flat,
flaky pieces, are unacceptable. Igneous
rock such as granite and basalt, as well
as old Precambrian highly metamor-
phic rock such as gneiss, are well
suited.
Figure 1 Typical quarry layout.
Quarries are normally run by opera-
tors who sell their products to nearby
contractors and road administrators.
This means that in areas where con-
struction activities are high, several
competing quarries may be estab-
lished. Apart from environmental
aspects, such operations can disturb
the neighbouring area in the form of
noise from drilling, vibrations from
blasting, and dust from crushing and
screening. Quarries, wherever possible,
are therefore discreetly located, as
close as feasible to the construction
area, because the products are trans-
port cost sensitive.
Quarries can be either of the
common pit type or, in mountainous
terrain, the hillside type. Pit type quar-
ries are opened up below the level of
surrounding terrain, and accessed by
means of ramps (figure 1). The excava-
tion is often split into several benches,
depending on the depth of the opera-
tions. In its first stage, when the terrain
is rough and bulldozers cannot pro-
vide a flat floor, a top-hammer con-
struction type drill rig can be used to
establish the first bench. Once the first
bench is prepared, production drilling
is preferably carried out using DTH- or
COPROD techniques.
Shallower Benches
Whereas high benches, above 30 m,
were previously quite common, nowa-
days they are shallower, for improved
safety and economy. The width of the
bench should be sufficient, both to
accommodate the spread of rock blast,
and to provide space for the
equipment.
The height of the working face in
hill type quarries is determined mainly
by the topography.
A typical work cycle in a quarry con-
sists of a number of work elements.
Drilling of blast holes is undertaken in
a predetermined pattern, followed by
plugging the drill holes with wooden
or plastic plugs to prevent debris from
falling down into the holes.
When an adequate number of holes
have been drilled, preparations for
blasting will start. The holes are blown
clean with compressed air to remove
water and rock fragments, and are
then charged with a booster bottom
charge, detonators and explosives.
Stemming is inserted into the top of
each hole, and the detonator leads are
connected. Where electric detonators
are used, the circuit resistance is
checked with an ohmmeter. The area

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Typical cost distribution at quarries is evacuated, equipment is moved

away, and the round is fired.
Before loading, the lower quarry
floor is cleaned of fly rock with a wheel
loader. Blasted rock is then loaded into
25% trucks, and transported to the crusher
50%
station. Large boulders are pushed
7% aside, and stockpiled for subsequent
28%
secondary breaking. Rock is discharged
directly, or via a grizzley for size con-
25% trol, into the primary crusher.
Crushing, Screening and Storage
Thereafter, it is transported by convey-
Loading and Transport or belts for secondary, and possibly
65%
Drilling and Blasting tertiary, crushing.
Blasting The different products, comprising
Drilling
rock fragments of certain size ranges,
Drill string
are recovered from the process by
vibrating screens, and transported to
storage silos or bunker piles on the
ground.
Figure 2 Operational cost distribution at quarries.
Optimum Efficiency
Crusher Fragmentation
There are various factors to be consid-
ered when trying to achieve optimum
Over-sized has to be re-drilled
and blasted and is very expensive. efficiency and overall economy from
quarrying operations, the most impor-
tant of which is cost reduction. Figure
2 illustrates a typical cost distribution
Drill pattern
between drilling and blasting, loading
What size is the crusher?
What is the tonnage requirement? Spacing and transport, and crushing, screening
Determines hole size. and storage. It should be noted that
crushing, screening and storage repre-
Burden
sent about half of the costs, whereas
Hole sizes Bench
Height drilling represents less than 10%. More
often than not, the crushing operation
is the bottleneck in the total work-
O 64 160 mm
cycle. It is sometimes the case that
extra expenditure in drilling and blast-
Hole size and blasting techniques determine other parameters.
ing might be the only way to assure
free flow through the crusher, in order
to utilise full capacity in the plant, and
Figure 3 Fragmentation in quarries. improve overall economy. Good frag-
mentation and smooth benches will
also have a positive effect on loading
Drilling Methods
and transport equipment.
Trends ± In the 1980s, there was a trend
amongst rock producers to abandon
Pneumatic ---
Tophammers the use of large diameter holes, giving
larger size fragmentation, in favour of
Hydraulic
+++ medium size 89-165 mm (3.5-6.5 in)
Tophammers
holes. The trend in crushing equip-
ment is in the opposite direction, as
TDS Guide
Tubes + the manufacturers are going for larger
equipment, enabling larger size boul-
COPROD ++ ders to pass through the primary
crusher.
From an economics viewpoint,
DTH Hammers ++ however, it is obvious that large size
crushers are primarily designed to
Rotary Drilling -- handle large amounts of rock material,
rather than large size material.
64 165 Therefore, it is worth assessing the
25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200 225 250 mm rock fragmentation derived from the
Hole Diameter drilling and blasting cycle, in case
some additional investment in drilling
Figure 4 Trends in quarrying. is the answer (figure 3).

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The whole chain of activities leading

to the final product of crushed materi-
al must be considered when optimis-
Waste ing total costs.
Drilling costs depend on the hole
Bench
size and drilling density, in which accu-
slope 72o Good slope stability racy of drilling is a factor; blasting
costs depend on the amount and type
Pit slope 45o of explosives, and number of detona-
tors; and loading, transport and crush-
ing costs depend on quarry floor
y
od

roughness, and fragmentation.

eb

Good fragmentation needed For most drilling applications, the

Or

optimum ratio between bench height

and burden seems to be in the range of
3 to 4, indicating that hole diameters
Open pit mining, principle cross-section of 125-165 mm (5-6 in) are best for a
bench height in the order of 18 m.
Figure 5 General principles of open pit mining. Figure 4 shows the trends in choice
of drilling method. There is a clear
movement towards more hydraulic
tophammer, COPROD-drilling and
DTH, and away from pneumatic and
rotary drilling.

Open Pit Mining

Mass blasting Mass blasting: A major main difference between open
Optimised drilling with pit mining and quarries is the geologi-
Back cal conditions and the demand charac-
respect to production cost
break teristics on the blasted material.
zone Whereas quarries deliver the majority
of rock via the crushing and screening
Restricted blasting:
plant in various size fractions, the open
Undue damage of the rock
pit mine attempts to deliver the ore as
Restricted blasting slope will be reduced
pure as possible via crushers to the
dressing plant, consisting of mills, sepa-
rators, and/or flotation, and/or bio-
chemical systems, and finally to
smelters, in order to convert minerals
Figure 6 Restricted blasting improves pit slope stability. to metals.
As no orebodies have the perfect
conical shape which is tailor-made for
the geometry of a pit, vast quantities
of waste usually have to be removed
from both the hanging wall and the
foot wall in order to mine the ore.
Buffer holes - 127-165 mm
Contour holes - 127-165 mm Figure 5 shows a sectional layout of a
Production holes - 127-250 mm typical pit. The waste to ore ratio
increases as the pit gets deeper.
Eventually, for economic reasons, the
open pit will be abandoned, or under-
ground mining will take over. Without
jeopardising slope stability, it is of
prime importance to keep the pit slope
angle as steep as possible, maintaining
excavated waste at a minimum.
The demands on fragmentation of
the waste, as it will not pass through
the crushing/dressing system, are
simple. It should merely suit the load-
ing and trucking equipment used for
subsequent removal to the waste
dump. On the other hand, good frag-
mentation of the blasted ore will make
great savings in the total costs of the
Figure 7 Drilling pattern for presplit in open pit mining. mineral dressing process.

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Benches using
Benches using 42 ms delay between rows
pre-splitting and
rotary rigs
DTH drilling
detonating cord
Waste excess

2.5 m stemming
ø 127 mm
ROC L8 holes

5.0 m
Emulan
explosives
(10.5 kg/m)

Figure 8 Savings in waste extraction by increasing the pit slope. 0.8 m overdrilling

2x Nonel detonators (500 ms)

m 4.8
35 m + boosters
3.

Figure 10 Charging for soufflé blasting.

cope with the inflexibility of the rotary

rig still remains, this measure will not
Soufflé blasting derive the full potential benefits of the
DTH drilling method.
Figure 8 shows the advantages
related to using an Atlas Copco ROC
L8 rig, having the ability to drill
inclined holes close to the bench wall,
compared to a traditional rotary rig.

Firing sequence (42 ms between consecutive numbers 1-6)
Figure 9 Soufflé blasting at Björkdal gold mine.
Steep and Stable Slopes
Blasting will not only break the rock
that is planned to be excavated, but
will also cause damage to the slopes
that form the boundaries of the pit.
The extent of this overbreak is mainly
dependent on the size of the individual
charge and its proximity. A common
means of minimising overbreak is to
use smaller diameter holes, making
provision for restricted blasting in the
zone next to the planned bench slope.
Figure 6 shows two different blast
designs.
Figure 7 shows a typical drilling pat-
tern to be applied in connection with
pre-split blasting, to achieve increased
slope stability with reduced back
break.
Drilling Patterns
Traditionally, focusing on the drilling
cost parameter, the predominant
method in open pit mining has been
large hole rotary drilling using hole
sizes in the 250 to 400 mm (10-
15.75 in) range. No doubt this implies
lower cost for drilling, ignoring the
expense of excess waste and less
favourable fragmentation. A recent
survey of 36 open pit operations in
Chile using hole sizes between 75 and
345 mm (3.0-13.75 in) reveals that
hole sizes above 200 mm (8 in) do not
generate any substantial savings in
total drilled metres per tonne. This
indicates that burden and spacing
cannot be increased indefinitely. One
important reason for replacing rotary
with other methods is the inflexibility
of the heavy rotary rigs, which are
restricted to vertical benches and
single pass drilling only.
A possible, but not advisable, step
in obtaining smaller holes, is to adapt
rotary rigs to DTH drilling, by adding
a high-pressure compressor to the
rig. As the need for wide benches to
Soufflé Blasting
Mining of rich, narrow and irregularly
stratified ore zones, such as gold min-
eralisations, requires extra attention, in
order not to introduce unnecessary
quantities of waste into the ore stream.
Consequently, this type of mining has
to be progressed on a selective basis, in
close liaison with surveyors and geolo-
gists, and taking frequent samples
before and after each individual blast.
Short benches and small holes are used
to cope with ore zone irregularities. A
recently developed method to ensure
maximum recovery from each blast is
called soufflé blasting. Figures 9 and 10
illustrate this principle of cautious blast-
ing with a minimum of dilution as
practised at the Björkdal gold mine in
Sweden. To a depth of merely 5 m,
100 vertical holes are blasted in one
round, without free surface for ex-
pansion. The firing sequence starts
in the centre and, thanks to 2.5 m of
stemming, the blasted ore material
just swells on site like baking a soufflé.
Selective extraction by back hoe
loaders facilitates maximum recovery
of the rich, narrow gold-bearing
zones.
by Hans Fernberg

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