Mine Tech ‘10(7th & 8th May 2010)

@ Bhubaneswar

byThe Indian Mining & Engineering Journal

VenkatTata Steel

Key note Address

• G.S.Kuntia, Former ED-SAIL explained about the mineral wealth of Orissa. 1/5th of national coal reserves are present in Orissa.

• Prof.Jayanthu – thrust on outsourcing of non-statutory activities of mining as discussed in national safety conference.

• S.N.Padhi, Ex-DGMS – importance of self regulation required for industries.

Key note Address

• Rana Som, CMD-NMDC – – Out of 25.2 BT of iron reserves in India only 6.6 BT

is proved till now.– Requirement of policy decision for iron

exploration. NMDC approached state governments for doing exploration at free of cost.

– Technology is a mixture of policy and economics.– Sustenance is possible through protection of

environment , CSR and generation of employment.

Key note Address• DC.Garg, CMD-WCL explained the production figures of WCL

and their future plans to introduce more number of continuous miners (present-5, future-38) and longwalls (working-4, proposed-5) for reaching higher production levels.

• V.K.Singh, CMD-NCL – Highest consumption of explosives in CIL– Maximum depth of Jayanthu OC is 238m– 1.2LT explosive used in 2010-11 to produce 72MT of Coal &

248M.Cu.m of OB. – Blasts are simulated before hand to find out the fragmentation and

powder factor.

Technical Sessions – Day 1

Technical Sessions

• SAP application in Mining – Seal Info Tech & SCCL– Challenges – Operational management, supply chain, asset

base, manage growth, project execution, HR, SHE, Contract management, Vendor Management.

– Needs – visibility & control, improvement efficiency & cost containment, sustainability & risk.

– 290 major customers of mining are using SAP – 22 Mining scenarios are developed in SAP till now.– Shared the experiences of implementation of SAP in SCCL

and its usefulness in reducing the manpower, delays, avoiding duplication and corruption.

Technical Sessions

• Mining & Exploration techniques – case study at Bagjata Uranium Mine, Jharkhand – mainly discussed about the available mining methods and its impact on safety & environmental issues. Cut & fill method is selected for the present mine.

• MOIL – Manganese Ore (India) Limited– Operates 7 underground & 3 opencast mines in Maharashtra.– Mn -12th most abundant & 4th most used metal.– Explained about the difficulties in supporting the roof in

underground mines and found cable bolting as the best method of support.

Technical Sessions

• Application of life cycle cost (LCC) technique in equipment selection of OC mines – – The cost of a system or equipment to the end user over it

planned lifetime is its life cycle cost of ownership.– LCC = Acquisition cost + Sustaining cost– LCC concept in British standards called as “Terotechnology” –

A combination of management, financial, engineering, building and other practices applied to physical assets in pursuit of economic life cycle costs.

– LCC software's are developed on Monte-Carlo Algorithm.

Technical Sessions

• Vermeer Continuous Miner – T1255 SEM– Avoids blasting – thereby reducing the concerns about

maintaining safety zone.– Extraction of thin seams is possible and avoids primary

crushing plant.– It can cut 3.7m wide and 69mm deep cut in a single pass of a

material with compressive strength upto 120MPa.– For 680 T/Hr production with 2Km haul distance, the

operating cost/hr for production is Rs. 16,400/- at 85% availability of the machine.

– Under trial stage in India in NCL.

Technical Sessions• Application of Mining Software in Mine Planning & Design –

They explained the advantages and different software's available in the market. But industry needs a comparative statement and which is best suited for which job.

• Permitted-HP, a new P5 explosive product to accelerate the production in underground mines – – Explosive usage in the hole should be as per the DGMS standards, which limits

the increase in the length of the hole.– If we increase the length of hole from 1.8 to 2.7m and put spacers in between

explosive cartridges keeping inview of DGMS standards then detonation wave does not transfer between cartridges.

– To solve this Gulf Oil prepared a new P5 explosive approved by DGMS which will pas detonating wave upto 15cm gap between two cartridges, thus increasing the depth of holes, pull and production.

Technical Sessions• Strata Control problems in Coal mines

– About 2500 MT of Coal locked up in standing pillars in underground due to strata control problems

– Importance of maintaining strata control cells in each areas of mines operation as discussed in the national safety conference.

• Longwall experiences with varied face lengths in SCCL – mainly discussed on the observations made on the strata and acting of abutment pressures with the varied face lengths while working of a same longwall face.

Technical Sessions• Wide Stall Method

– Application of this method with the use SDL machines in GDK.8A Mine of SCCL turned the mine into safe and profitable after a major accident of roof fall involving the death of 10 persons.

– Application of the same method in Sarni Mine, Pathakhera area of WCL to protect the surface features like HT power lines, seasonal nallahs, railway lines, roads, buildings, etc.

Technical Sessions – Day 2

Technical Sessions• VOD vs Diameter of blast hole for Bulk emulsion explosive

– VOD of an explosive not only controls the rate of release of energy but also influences the energy partitioning with respect to shock and heave energy.

– critical diameter is the dia below which explosive do not propagate a detonation at all and optimum diameter is the dia above which an increase in dia no longer has an appreciable effect on VOD.

– From the experiments and field trials it is found that for the unconfined space VOD has an effect between 50 to 125mm dia of the cartridge of the explosive & for rock confined space the dia is between 115 to 152m.

Technical Sessions• Blasting Performance Index (BPI) – A tool for blast

evaluation: it is a quantitative criteria for assessment of blast performance based on the post blast conditions on day to day basis to modify the pre blast conditions.

• New concept of Fly rock zone – This paper mainly explained the analysis made into an accident occurred due to fly rock beyond the statutory danger zone of 500m because of elevation difference between blasting point and the hitting point using the laws of motion of a projectile under uniform acceleration.

Technical Sessions• SWOT analysis in Blasting – this analysis

made after each blast to have positive control of blast induced vibrations, control of fly rock, good fragmentation, going for bigger blasts, safety of man & machines.

• Assessment of safety if earthen dams against ground vibrations due to mining blasts – they found that the maximum charge weight of 680 kg per delay corresponded to a PPV of 6.5mm/s at the minimum distance of 500m. (safe vibration level is 15mm/s)

Arwar dam

Agucha Irriga tion Tank

P lant Tailing Dam

Bherukheda V illage

M agazine

Pit A rea

Manas R ive r

Agucha V illage

Roa

d to

Ban

e ra -

New

Ram

pura

Distances from Pit/blasting point:

• Agucha Irrigation Tank: 510 – 1860 m

• Tailing Dam: 500 – 1600 m

• Arwar Dam: >6.9 km

Technical Sessions• Controlled blasting with e-Det at Bankola OC, ECL – Case

study – – This is developed indigenously by Gulf Oil company for

making controlled blasting with a separate programmable e-Xploder when the surface structures are at a distance of 100 to 150m from the blasting zone.

– The trials were made in this mine and observed a PPV of 3.3mm/s with 12.5Kg of charge/delay of explosive in a blasting round of 75Kg at a distance of 87.8m from blast site.

– They have shown the video of the blast made using e-Det at Bhopal city for making a trench just adjacent to the main road & buildings.

Technical Sessions• Bright prospects of non-coaking coal preparation in India –

This mainly discussed about the need for washability of coal used for power plants thereby avoiding the unnecessary cost in transportation of ash to the tune of 15 to 16%.

• Significance of petrographic study in selection of feed coals to coking coal washeries – Mainly discussed on the importance of conducting petrographic analysis in combination with washability characteristics and liberation studies so as to produce clean coking coal with less ash content and more vitrinite content, improving caking/coking properties suitable for blast furnace.

Technical Sessions• Application of Robotics in Mining –

– A Drag line with 120T capacity, 100m boom length converted into robot is working at Queens land pit featured on NASA’s “cool robot of the week” website.

– Applications like surveying, mapping, accessing remote places, water logged areas, post blast environmental assessments, etc in underground mines can be made with the help of robots.

– In association with CMPDI a robot has been prepared for mine mapping in underground. Trials are under progress.

• Cold setting building brick from Mining & Industry waste – explained the process of preparation of bricks by polymerization reaction using 95% fly ash, 50% beneficiated iron ore tailings and red mud in the raw mix which attains 80-150kg/sq.cm crushing strength at a cost of Rs.2.20-2.60/-

Technical Sessions• Green Mining industry initiative – explained about the

importance of generating energy from wind & solar power to use for mining activity. MSPL in India is generating about 127.8MW of electricity from wind power.

• Discussed on the other environmental management & control issues related to uranium mining at Domiasiat, Meghalaya & Lime stone mining at Katni, MP involving transport of limestone to a distance of 11.2Km by conveyor.

Thanks