45 JULY 2024 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Quarry Blasts Over 208,000 Tons in One Day Adapted from Information by Austin Powder The Peckham Catskill Quarry has been used since the early 1900s. Since the creation of this highwall, the Austin Powder team of blasters always blasted it in two shots (east side/west side) due to its sheer size and height, with each shot producing around 100,000 tons. One spring, the customer asked if it would be possible to shoot it all in one shot to cut down on oversize and eliminate potentially dangerous highwall conditions. After careful review, the Austin Powder teams determined this was possible, and they committed to the project. The first challenge was creating a blast layout with straight rows on this 700-foot-long bench with extremely difficult terrain. There was nowhere on the shot where you could stand and see from one side to the other. The second challenge was the time window. Since the face needed to be “muck free” for optimal blast design, the quarry had to mine elsewhere. So, an additional 75,000 tons were shot in another part of the quarry, which gave the blasters a threeweek window to complete this project. Blast day logistics were also challenging as many moving parts needed to run smoothly to prevent a missed shot time by 5 p.m. On the day of the blast, five crews, each with a blaster, driver, and laborer, arrived at 5:45 a.m. They all needed to be on the shot at once, loading holes, and as soon as the first two trucks were empty, they returned to the nearby plant to reload the bulk product. Nicolas Kitsock, the lead blaster on the project, said the greatest challenge they faced was directly related to overseeing five shot crews simultaneously, “I had to figure out how to give five blasters the precalculated hole loads which factored in face profiles and overburdens off the drill logs, when marking paint at the hole was not an option due to the number of cuttings on the surface which remained dry due to no rain.” The Austin Powder Technical Experts flew a drone to evaluate the face and bench and modeled the shot using Paradigm software. The software was also used to generate all 3D profiles, hole depths, and fixed per hole timing based on distance. Using the data generated by Paradigm, a front row was added with optimal face burdens, followed by a second and third row based on the customer’s preferred pattern. The team then sent the 103 holes designed in Paradigm back to the Emlid GPS. The next day, they “staked out” the holes with the rover, and within an hour, they had completed the optimal layout - without taking any physical measurements on the bench. The three-week window to drill and shoot was accomplished. The entire shot was drilled by Austin Powder companyowned drills - an Atlas Copco D60 split the drilling with a Sandvik 550, drilling over 9000 drill feet. Measurements were taken in the weeks before to allow the drills to arrive the day the shot was laid out. The last challenge of giving the blasters good hole load data as they leapfrogged around the shot was solved by subdividing the shot into four areas, each containing around 25-30 holes. Each blaster received a hole load chart for all four areas on the shot. They were also marked on the bench by painting dividing lines so at any time, a blaster could reference where he was on the shot. With careful logistical planning, Austin Powder Technical Services expertise, and plenty of help, the blasters were able to shoot ahead of schedule at 3:30 p.m. 130,000 lbs of explosive product were loaded and shot in a single day, producing 208,412 tons of material. The area before and after the blast. EXB
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk4Mzk=