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Lecture 4, Operation Units

The document discusses various unit operations involved in mining including drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, ventilation, drainage and material handling. It describes the steps in drilling including different drill types. It also explains blasting and the types of explosives used. The summary discusses loading and hauling operations as well as factors considered in equipment selection.

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LAURENT JIBUNGE
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
16 views

Lecture 4, Operation Units

The document discusses various unit operations involved in mining including drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, ventilation, drainage and material handling. It describes the steps in drilling including different drill types. It also explains blasting and the types of explosives used. The summary discusses loading and hauling operations as well as factors considered in equipment selection.

Uploaded by

LAURENT JIBUNGE
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Unit Operations of Mining

• Mining is the extraction of minerals from the earth. In order


to achieve this goal, the following operations are
done/employed during the development, and the
exploitation stages of mining
a) Drilling (rock penetration) and blasting (rock fragmentation)
collectively termed as rock-breakage
b) Loading and haulage or collectively called material handling
c) Supporting of workings (ground control)
d) Mine ventilation and air conditioning
e) Drainage or water pumping
f) Electro-mechanical maintenance operations: including
power supply. Communication, supply of compressed air,
water supply
g) Material supplies to the mine: explosives, mine timber etc
• Steps or operations (a) and (b) are directly
involved in the extraction of minerals and
are collectively called production
operations. The sequence of unit
operations used to accomplish mine
development or exploitation is called the
cycle of operations. That is the sequence of
operations that are repeated over and over
to produce the mineral commodity. The
most common cycle of operations used for
mine production is
• Basic production cycle= drill +blast+
load+ haul
• Step (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g) are steps or
operations which support the production
operations and are called Auxiliary operations
MINING PRODUCTION OPERATIONS
Production cycle employs the following
unit operations:

• Drill
• Blast
• Load
• Haul
DRILLING AND
BLASTING
• Drilling (rock penetration)
• Blasting (rock fragmentation)
The drill, the mechanical device that convert energy
from its original source (electrical, pneumatic,
hydraulic, or combustion engine) into rotational
and /or percussive energy to penetrate the rock
Penetration of the bit into the rock occurs due to a
combination of FOUR actions:
• Percussion
• Rotation
• Feed
• Bailing
drifter rotary
head
rotation

percussion

compressed downhole
air drill

percussion
bit rotary rotary
head head

tricone
bit

downhole
drill
Drill Types
• Top hammer drills
• Down the Hole Hammer or DTH
• Rotary drills
Blasting
Rock fragmentation is breakage function carried
out on large scale to fragment masses of rock.
Blasting is the predominant fragmentation method
employed. Blasting using chemical explosives has
widespread use for all consolidated materials in
both surface and underground mining
Nature of explosives
An explosive is any chemical compound,
mixture, or device, the primary objective of
which is to function by explosion. The
decomposition of explosive is a high –
velocity exothermic reaction, accompanied
by the liberation of vast amounts of energy
and hot gases at tremendous pressure.
The process is termed detonation if the
propagation speed of the reaction through
the explosive mass is supersonic (faster
than the speed of sound).
Chemical reactions of Explosives
• Explosives consist of oxidizers and fuel mixed together
in a proper proportion to produce the desired violent
chemical reaction.
• Relatively inexpensive oxidizers and fuels are generally
used to produce a cost – efficient mixture.
• Most ingredients used consist of the elements O2, N, H
and C plus certain metallic elements such as Al, mg, Na,
ca etc.
• The primary criterion of efficient energy release is the
oxygen balance
• Zero oxygen balance is the point at which an explosive
has sufficient oxygen to completely oxidize all the
contained fuels but no excess oxygen to react with the
contained nitrogen.
There are two reasons for balancing the
oxygen fuel mixture
– The energy output is optimized
– The formation of toxic chemical gases such
as oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide,
methane and others is minimized.
Calculating the Oxygen Balance

• CxHyNwOz = xC+yH+wN+zO
z- (2x+y/2), which equals zero oxygen
If z >(2x+y/2), the explosive is under -
oxidized
z< (2x+y/2), the explosive is over –oxidized.
OB% = 100(AW of O2)
(MW of explosive)(z-2x-y/2)
Type of Explosives

There are four main types of modern


commercial explosive
• initiating explosive
• High explosives (TNT, dynamite etc or
others similarly sensitized/fuelled). All
are cap-sensitive
• Blasting agents (dry, slurries or emulsion
types)
• Low explosives (blasting powder
Selection of Explosives
Selection criteria
Explosive costs
Charge diameter
Water condition
Rock blastability
Fume release
MATERIAL HANDLING:
LOADING AND HAULAGE
• Material Haulage- Surface haulage
• Underground Haulage and Hoisting
Mode of transportation system`
There are two modes of transportation
systems
• batch(discrete) type operation
• continuous type operation
batch(discrete) type operation
continuous type operation
Load Haul Combine

No Minimal Non-fixed Fixed path Mobile Fixed-base


tramming tramming path

Discrete Loading Front-end Truck Rail, Tractor scraper Dragline


Unit shovel, loader Shuttle car Skip hoist, Dozer Stripping-
Backhoe, (FEL) Slusher, Load-haul-dump shovel
Hydraulic Aerial (LHD)
front shovel tramway

Continuou Bucket Bulk This category is characterized by


s flow Wheel Solids single machines. Rather,
Excavator , Belt continuous loaders and haulers
(BWE) Conveyor are placed in series to create a
Bucket Screw continuous flow of material eg
Chain Conveyor long wall shearer and chain
Excavator, Pneumatic conveyor, BWE and belt
(BCE) transport conveyor auger head and screw
Dredge, conveyor. Therefore, production
Continuous capacity of the combined system
Miner is the smaller production of the
two components.
Equipment Selection Process
Definitions of fundamental terms that are
independent of specific equipment types
Production
Total volume or weight of material to be
handled in a specific operation. It can refer
to either the economic mineral to be
produced or to the waste material
Production rate
theoretical production volume or weight of a
machine per unit of time/ it is usually expressed
on an hourly basis but can be given for other units
of time such as a shift or a day.
Productivity
The actual production per unit of time when all
efficiency and other management factors are
considered
Efficiency
The percentage of the estimated production rate
that is actually handled by a machine
Availability
That portion of the scheduled operating time that a
machine is mechanically ready to work
Utilization
That portion of the available time that a machine is
actually working.
Capacity
Refers to the volume of material that a loading or
haulage unit can hold at any point in time
• Struck capacity
• Heaped capacity
Rated Capacity
The load that a machine can carry in terms of
weight.
Swell Factor
fractional increase in material volume that occurs
when it is fragmented and removed from its
natural state (bank volume) and deposited in a
loosened state (Loose volume)
Bucket fill factor
Adjustment to the capacity of a loading machine
bucket
Heaped truck
Cycle
As mining is described generally as a cycle
of unit operations, so each unit operation
is generally cyclical in nature
The most common components of a discrete
unit haulage cycle are load, haul, dump
and return plus traveling time

Cycle time = DT +SL + LT+ TL+DP+SD+TE


Calculating production capacity in batch
system
Number of circles = Operating time in hours
Working cycle in second

Production per cycle = Production


Machines x number of cycles

Dipper (bucket) size = Production


Bank density x swell factor x dipper fill
factor
Calculating Production Capacity of
Continuous system Eg BWEs
• Where Ss = number of bucket discharges
per second
• and Qt is the theoretical capacity of the
excavator in (m3/h)
• Bf is the bucket filling capacity in the soil
expressed as a fraction of the nominal
bucket capacity, and
• Qa is actual capacity of the BWE in
(m3/h).
It has been found, in hard ground, bucket filling is
around 30% to 40% of the nominal capacity
The relationship between digging resistance and
the hourly capacity of the BWE
2 is
Q1 k1
 2
Q2 k2
Where
Q1 is the BWE hourly capacity in (m3) in soil with
specific cutting resistance k1 and
Q2 is BWE hourly capacity in (m3) in soil with
specific cutting resistance k2.

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