Designing and engineering this blast took the skilled expertise and collaboration of the mine’s drill-and-blast team, DynoConsult, the Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific (DNAP) Electronics Conversion Team and DNAP Operations.
The blast was an overwhelming success, according to the company. Loaded over a 16-day period, 4,788 DigiShot Plus detonators were used to initiate 1,729 blastholes on four terraces with no misfires. The DigiShot Plus electronic platform provided the timing flexibility required for this project. This system is capable of initiating up to 9,600 detonators with a blast duration of 20,000 milli-seconds (ms) in 1-ms increments.
Through-seam blasting helps to improve mining productivity by making it possible to blast through one or more coal seams during a single-blast event. This is beneficial when coal seams are steeply dipping and enables blasts to be designed to a workable grade below the coal seam. Using flexible timing during through-seam blasting is crucial because it increases efficiency by confining the coal and minimizing movement and dilution while the interburden below the seam is blasted.
