The latest release of Maptek BlastLogic drill and blast accuracy management system reduces costs for mining operations.
‘Getting the fundamentals of drill and blast right every time is crucial,’ said Maptek Product Manager for BlastLogic, Mark Roberts. ‘Better blast performance leads to better fragmentation, which in turn leads to easier handling and processing of excavated material.’
‘Improving fragmentation for example has a direct impact on ‘digability’ and can lead to shovel gains of up to 10%,’ he added.
Other factors which can have a positive influence on downstream productivity include explosives loading and blast timing controls. BlastLogic Version 2.0 adds tie up tools, blast modelling and inventory management to an already powerful solution for tracking and improving blast performance.
Commodity loss can be reduced by as much as 20% when blast techniques and performance are improved.
With tie up tools, users can quickly create and compare multiple design scenarios. BlastLogic 2.0 directly targets fragmentation, vibration and overpressure issues, providing blast modelling previews to help determine if the design will produce the desired outcome.
With BlastLogic inventory management is linked to blast results. A site catalogue tracks and reconciles explosive received, dispatched and used. This information can be easily referenced and analysed to improve forecasting.
‘BlastLogic effectively provides a live window to what’s happening in the field,’ continued Roberts. ‘Immediate access to production data, analysing results in real time and making changes on the fly mean all teams are working in sync.’
‘Sharing and analysing data instantly at critical stages helps clarify priorities. BlastLogic puts operations in a prime position to make decisions which ensure they get the best drill and blast performance for their outlay.’
Only BlastLogic supports blast-by-blast analytics, allowing comparison of blasts across the mine to correlate design, execution and results.
The performance can be analysed to ensure that every aspect of the drill and blast process is finetuned to reduce costs in downstream processing and continuously improve overall mine productivity.