Application of Mine Excellence software in flyrock prediction & mitigation

Abstract

The mining industry spends a lot of blasting, explosives, and the safe implementation of blasting practices. Surface mines account for about 90% of the country’s overall production. The blasting process is necessary for the occurrence of disintegration and the displacement of the fragmented rock. The explosive energy helps in moving the rock mass, whereas a great part of it is consumed in the generation of flyrock, ground vibrations, noise and air blasts, which are highly undesirable. Flyrock contributes about 68% of total injuries worldwide. Flyrock, also known as rock throw is the uncontrolled driving of rock wastes produced in blasting and founds one of the key causes of material damage and harm to people. Since flyrock is considered a critical issue of mining, it becomes necessary to study the parameters for flyrock generation and its mitigation measures. The present work emphasizes various causes of flyrock, precautions in dealing with flyrock, and various models used for the prediction of throws. The three models used in this report include Lundborg Prediction Model, General Trajectory Throw, and Workman and Scaled Burden Approach. Further, the Python program compares the accuracy of these various prediction models by taking the inputs, which include different blast specifications. Those predictions compared with the pre-existing Mine Excellence flyrock Predictor software.