DRILL & BLAST
Example of a soft rock cutter from Bauer
LATEST CUTTER DEVELOPMENT Te development of a potential mine comes along with big challenges during the technical and commercial planning stage. Terefore, a reliable and detailed bulk sampling programme is inevitable. In 2019, such a sampling programme was carried out with a Bauer trench cutter system on the Star Orion kimberlite fields for Rio Tinto in Saskatchewan, Canada. High demands on depth capability, safety standards, and the integrity and quality of the samples required a new technology that was able to meet all expectations. Te scope of the first phase of the programme comprised of 10 trenches with a maximum depth of 251m. Te objective of the work was to collect high-quality diamond bearing kimberlite samples. Te kimberlite zone started from around 105m vertical depth and is overlain by so called overburden material from loose sands to sticky and hard clays with cobbles and boulders. Te kimberlite chips with potential diamond content were washed, collected and stored for further processing.
MAIN FEATURES Tis proven cutter technology will now be further developed to reach a 100 tonne
per hour mining rate in up to 100MPa UCS rock. As an alternative to diesel, all drives for pumps and cutter wheels can be completely powered by electric only, with a total installed power of up to 2MW.
Te cutter mining sequence will be designed to the dimensions and layout
of each individual vein for maximum ore recovery and minimum dilution. Overall Bauer recommends performing a four-month trial mining operation in the gold mine, first with HRCS on a standard Bauer cutter system and then to optimise the design to achieve the best performance for the future.
Open pit mining on a 2m wide gold vein in Argentina
www.engineerlive.com 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
