Glencore's Ernest Henry Mining is one of the first mines in the world to trial Orica's Wireless Electronic Blasting as part of its move to improve safety and production by using innovative drill and blasting processes.
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Over the past three years, EHM production engineers have been investigating opportunities to optimise drill and blast practices by trialling Orica's Wireless Electronic Blasting System called WebGen.
Wireless blasting is a relatively new innovation in the mining industry, in which encrypted firing signals are sent directly to an in-hole receiver attached to each individual detonator, completely removing the need for physical leads.
This technology delivers significant improvements in both safety and operational performance.
Previously, mine personnel would have to manually connect detonator leads underground but, as Orica Blasting Technician Luke Carlon says, the unique feature of WebGen is that the lack of detonator leads ensures reduced personnel exposure to the brow.
"By removing the leads you're removing the main failure mechanism of an electronic detonator," Mr Carlon said.
"This significantly improves underground safety as it removes the need for a person to enter an area before and after it has been fired."
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Following the first trial of WebGen in 2017, the EHM team recognised existing design philosophies were not fully capitalising on the benefits of wireless detonator technology.
Glencore and Orica engineers began investigating how to use the wireless initiation system to deliver extensive operational benefits to the mine.
Glencore's Lead Resource Engineer, Michael Hawtin, oversaw the trial at EHM, recognising mining was adapting to changing dimensions and orebodies, and processes need to change with it.
"Continuous improvement is very important for us, particularly with a focus on safety but also for efficiency and production improvements," Mr Hawtin said.
"In March 2020, a design was proposed utilising the WebGen technology which has since significantly improved blasting performance. WebGen enabled designs have demonstrated recovery of approximately 95% of available tonnes, whereas previous shots were recovering roughly 80%."
The technology has also allowed EHM to create independent drives and eliminate slot drives. This reduces lateral development in the main ore body, meaning less money is spent on building this infrastructure which can instead be invested into other parts of the operation.
Mr Hawtin said eliminating the lateral development areas also reduced requirements for ground support and complex equipment interactions.
"This minimises the wear and tear of mobile equipment and allows them to extract quicker tonnes due to the reduced path length," he said.
"The implementation has also created simpler ventilation requirements and means that operators are not exposed to potentially unsafe underground areas during blasting. WebGen has also contributed to de-risking additional ore by improving the blasting performance."
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