Modern Mining May 2019

PRODUCT News

Orica enhances its digital blast optimisation platform

ASX-listed Orica, reputed to be the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial explo- sives and innovative blasting systems, has announced the release of new features to its digital blast optimisation platform, BlastIQ™. The new BlastIQ™ features have been developed to bring additional capabili- ties and help customers reduce the overall cost of drill-and-blast operations, improve operational productivity and safety, and facilitate regulatory compliance. Orica’s Global Digital Product Manager, Angelo Labriola, describes how Orica’s digital technologies are helping custom- ers, saying: “Every day around the world, engineers design blasts and those blast outcomes impact as much as 80 % of the Total Mine Processing Costs. The process of designing blasts, adjusting designs for real conditions encountered in the field, and understanding the outcomes of blasts is a manual, time-intensive task involving multiple inputs. Optimisation efforts suf-

with new visualisation features, accelerat- ing planning, analysis and auditing of blast data to satisfy regulatory requirements. Multilingual support has also been added across the technology suite, now supporting Spanish, French Canadian, Russian and Portuguese, facilitating broader access and adoption of BlastIQ™ for more customers around the world. The BlastIQ™ Mobile technology now provides a wider set of loading conditions through the seamless integration of loading rules, increasing on-bench quality control management and productivity. Continuous loading rules can now be applied to blast holes in real-time, even in areas without bench wireless connectivity, creating effi- ciency and quality gains on-bench. Accuracy and efficiency of explosives delivery is significantly enhanced through real-time synchronisation of blast hole data betweenOrica’s MobileManufacturing Unit (MMU™) and BlastIQ™ as changes occur in both design and actual loading data. Hole identification functionality avail- able in both BlastIQ™ enabled delivery systems and BlastIQ™ Mobile improves in- field blast quality control and assurance. The hole position identification feature helps operators to more easily identify holes on-bench, reducing errors from potential confusion over hole identifica- tion and ensuring accurate recording of which holes have been dipped or loaded. This real-time data flow empowers rapid decisionmaking, such as accurately adding new holes and data as needed, improving operational efficiencies. Orica, tel (+27 10) 596-3101, website: www.orica.com Working speeds are quick for the short distances involved. Cross-travel speed is 16 m/min for the 7,2 m end-to-end travel distance. Long travel speed is 32 m/min for a gantry length of just 20 m. Hoist speed is 6,2 m/min. A Condra spokesman explained that the design challenge lay in configuring a crab to operate within the relatively tight travel and lift dimensions. “For a grabbing crane this is a very con- fined area in which to work. Spans and lifting heights are usually much larger,” the spokesman said. Condra, website: www.condra.co.za

fer due to lack of time and tools to support that objective in the face of daily opera- tional demands. “BlastIQ saves time and improves qual- ity by automating processes across the blasting workflow. Inspired by our cus- tomers’ feedback, the latest release of BlastIQ will enable our customers to make better decisions, more rapidly and deliver improved blast outcomes across their operations. “We’re aiming to develop the most robust, most user-friendly set of digital drill and blast tools available, with easy integra- tion across the value chain and delivery of whole of mine insights required to drive material impact for our customers.” Improvements to the BlastIQ™ user interface allow real-time access to the sta- tus of each blast through the centralised online BlastIQ™ Platform, enabling users to collate and collaborate on data from across the drill and blast process. Insights are easily interpreted from data gathered

Cross section view of dipped hole (BlastIQ™ Mobile interface).

Tight fit for Condra grabbing crane at Sishen railhead Grabbing cranes are usually large machines with wide spans and high lifting heights. Not so the Condra grabbing crane installed in February at the railhead serving Sishen iron ore mine in the Northern Cape. relatively small machine with a capacity of 1,5 tons, a span of just 7,2 m and a lifting height of a fairly standard 5,7 m.

Condra has previously manufac- tured much bigger grabbing cranes for various applications, such as the 25-ton, 30-m-span machine for a cement factory in Mozambique, but the Sishen specification called for a very high degree of operational precision, resulting in the need for low-tol- erance engineering of the crane clamshell grab so that it can move smoothly in and out of the railway cars.

Completed in December and delivered by road in January, the crane is the final link in Sishen’s ore spillage recovery chain, using its 0,5 m 3 clamshell grab to transfer dumps of ore spilled by the conveyor system and subsequently recovered into railway cars. This feature-rich double-girder electric overhead travelling grabbing crane is a

58  MODERN MINING  May 2019