Autonomy of blasthole drills is evolving while the level of take up is accelerating; it is no longer a fringe or just emerging solution, reports Paul Moore in this month’s Spotlight Feature Article.
Tag Archives: surface drilling
Sandvik launches the CT55 and CT67, its most advanced top hammer tool systems yet
Featuring an industry-first curved thread design, Sandvik’s new CT55 and CT67 top hammer tool systems are, the OEM says, the most advanced it has launched.
The unique design increases efficiency and reduces cost while saving fuel and simplifying automated drilling in surface bench and underground longhole applications, it says.
The new multi-patented, first-of-its-kind curved thread design from Sandvik reduces stress levels by distributing them over a larger area inside the tool. This enables the system to handle higher drilling power and a drill rig’s full potential.
“We are proud to offer an innovation that delivers significantly increased efficiency, since higher drilling parameters are allowed with fewer stops for breakages,” Anders Brungs, Vice President Product Line Top Hammer at Sandvik, said. “Our design increases productivity by 15% while reducing fuel consumption by 15%, as faster drilling means less flushing time.”
Sandvik’s unique new curved thread CT system is designed to increase drilling productivity and reduce cost both underground and on the surface.
“Surface drill rigs have much more power than current standard tools can handle,” Fredrik Björk, Product Manager for Top Hammer Surface Tools at Sandvik, said.
“This means the full potential of the drill rig cannot be used. Our new CT system radically increases the fatigue strength and we’ve also seen 30% longer tool life together with better hole precision in our product evaluation tests with early-adopting customers. This is a fully optimised system that includes the drill rig, the rock drill and the rock tool. The CT system also brings out the full potential of Ranger™ DXi and Pantera™ DPi rigs.”
The higher productivity of the CT systems can be reached with more aggressive settings for parameters like percussion, rotations and feed.
“Trouble-free drilling is key when operating underground,” Robert Grandin, Product Manager for Top Hammer Underground Tools at Sandvik, said. “In addition to higher productivity and lower cost, the extended service life of our CT system will be especially important for underground operations where tool breakages create frustration and interrruptions.
“The stronger geometry that comes with the curved thread design boosts tool service life by more than 30%. The curved design also makes the CT system automation-ready, since easy coupling and uncoupling in itself is an important enabler for automation, a vital technology in many underground operations.”
Sandvik’s new curved thread systems, CT55 and CT67 for surface mining and CT67 for underground mining, are now available. Drill bit diameters are 89-127 mm on CT55 and 102-140 mm on CT67, plus reaming bits 152-204 mm.
Sandvik looks to an open, interoperable and automation-ready future
To fully step into Industry 4.0 and realise the transformative power of solutions such as automation, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics requires a change in the way that mining data is handled and utilised from one system to the next, according to the Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division (part of Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions).
Programs that are designed to fully integrate with those from other vendors will not only deliver efficiency and cost benefits today, but also help mining houses transition into powerhouses of the future, it says.
As mining organisations have adopted digital solutions over the past 30 years, each company, down to the individual mine, has selected solutions that fit their mining style, commodity, workforce and processes. Due to the shift of professionals from one organisation to another, the different processes used for each commodity, and the introduction of new technologies, commonalities between digital products differ from operation to operation.
While some OEMs see this variability as an opportunity to close off third-party access to data and push their own digital agenda, Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division sees the sharing of data, connectivity and technology access as the next logical step to moving the industry, as a whole, forward.
Demetre Harris, Product Manager for Automation & Technology, said: “While there is much talk about systems interoperability and the benefits it could deliver in mining, it’s still in the early stages. Most vendors are still reluctant to allow others direct access to their technologies and generated data.”
Many vendors claim to offer application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow their solutions to share data with third-party systems, however there are often links missing which prevent true integration or mean that assistance from the vendor is required, according to the company.
“There are no standard APIs,” Harris explained. “For a third party to integrate its solution with an OEM platform or vice versa, it must develop custom code. The only way that happens today is if a customer can persuade the vendor to do the work.”
Understandably, miners are wary of locking themselves out of future purchasing decisions because their equipment may not be able to communicate properly with other systems.
Challenges and opportunities
When systems are unable to share data automatically, operators must resort to manual data handling and reporting. This is slow and tedious for staff and open to inaccuracies. Systems may also report data in different ways.
For example, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be computed differently between drilling solutions. One system may refer to utilisation as the time that the drill is operational, whether drilling, tramming or leveling, while another may calculate utilisation as the time during which an operator is onboard the drill. The challenge lies in integrating that information and drawing timely insights from it.
If machines and systems cannot ‘talk’ to one another, then safety conflicts could also arise making it difficult to operate the machines in the same environment, the company said. From an automation perspective, the ability for OEM systems to communicate with third-party solutions allows teams to mine safer and reduces the need for change management.
“Without interoperability and data sharing, the case for efficiency drops severely,” Harris added. “Not all operations are at a point where they’re ready to connect their systems together. Some mines may not have the infrastructure yet, but it’s going to be increasingly important going forward.”
Interoperability can provide huge efficiency and productivity gains across the value chain. For example, data generated during drilling can be used to improve blast profiles and optimise burden and hole spacing, which lowers explosive costs. Better blasting also improves fragmentation which lowers energy consumption downstream in crushing and grinding.
The blast arc can be positively affected when leveraging data, according to Sandvik
“Each department has its own performance targets and goals,” Harris explained. “If we can better integrate the programs that each team uses, then those processes can be optimised, and efficiencies realised across the entire operation.
“The more freely data can flow from one process to the next, the better prepared each department can be to handle changes originating from the orebody.”
Open data, open mind
True interoperability requires more than just data sharing. If systems are to be fully integrated, then the companies developing them must make interoperability a pillar of their designs and processes, according to the Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division.
Sandvik firmly believes that interoperability and data sharing are key to future efficiencies in mining, and the company is open to working with any third party to provide access to its data-rich technologies.
“We offer several levels of integration,” Harris explained. “From the sharing of data from our iSeries drill rigs into third-party solutions installed onboard our rotary drills, to API integrations with office and cloud solutions. There are multiple ways to connect and access our data so that it can be fed to other mining processes, including planning, blasting and mineral extraction.
“Ultimately, we’re open to discussing all forms of integration and interoperability,” he added. “If we work together, it provides better value for the customer, for Sandvik and for the industry as a whole.”
Designed for today and tomorrow
An example of this value can be seen in Sandvik’s latest integrations: one mining organisation asked the company to allow its blast solutions provider access to Sandvik’s iSeries Rotary Drills measurement-while-drilling (MWD) data. Using that data, the provider was able to calculate the hardness of the ground and determine the correct quantity of explosives and the best blasting sequence to fragment the ground, minimising both waste and blast costs.
“The solutions that we’re developing now are designed for future data sharing and interoperability,” Harris explained. “That’s the case with the newest version of OptiMine® for Surface which will be released later this year.
“Some of the data that’s provided through our APIs today may not be needed but, as new integrations and capabilities arise, systems may require it. We’re building our solutions in a way that makes them futureproof.”
Sandvik introduces new electric concept surface drill rig to the industry
Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions says it is bringing a ground-breaking electric concept drill rig for surface drilling to the Vei og Anlegg 2022 exhibition, with the potential for this solution to impact larger, mining-related drilling operations in the future.
Taking place on May 11–14, 2022, Vei og Anlegg is one of Scandinavia’s largest construction trade shows.
The new concept rig demonstrates some of the advanced technologies that will be introduced on future series drill rigs to support more sustainable and energy-efficient surface drilling, particularly in urban construction applications, it said.
The concept drill rig is essentially a versatile R&D platform for demonstrating the most advanced, but nevertheless proven and validated, sustainability technologies that are already in use or coming soon on underground drill rigs and loaders. The innovation lies in transferring these technological advantages into the surface drilling world for the first time to meet the latest demands from the industry, Sandvik says. The concept drill rig brings the new solutions together on an actual machine that you can get up close to – a “hands on” starting point for discussions on the customer’s real-life needs and the technological possibilities for addressing them with tomorrow’s products.
Builders and contractors are increasingly faced with specific, often quantified, sustainability targets: for example, electrification of power supply, energy efficiency targets and exhaust/noise restrictions. Sandvik says it wants to lead the way with the concept drill rig, demonstrating effective sustainability solutions that are designed to meet these challenges. The technologies demonstrated on the rig include electrified power supply and a range of emission reduction technologies, with the overall aim of energy efficiency and emission control (noise, particulates and CO2).
The compact Commando™ DC300Ri top hammer drill rig was selected as the platform for the concept drill rig, thanks to its popularity in urban surface drilling applications (for example, road/railroad construction and foundation drilling). It is however possible that product development projects based on the concept rig may lead to different, possibly larger, drill rigs. The concept rig also has the possibility of operating on direct electric power or battery power, as well as hybrid power supply using a small diesel generator. All of these energy sources are available and can be trialed on the concept drill rig, depending on the customer’s actual needs. The rock drill is also equipped with an effective noise guard.
“We could make the selections ourselves, for example the choice between a direct electric power supply and a battery-driven system, but we want to do it together with our customers,” Lauri Laihanen, Vice President, R&D and Product Management, Surface Drilling Division at Sandvik, said. “We want to have a dialogue, to ensure we really understand the customer’s actual needs and are tackling the right problems together. It’s about customer orientation, rather than technology orientation. Technology for us is only a tool to meet the customer’s needs. With this concept drill rig, the primary role of technology is to support a zero emissions approach at the customer’s operations, which of course aligns perfectly with Sandvik’s own sustainability goals.”
Alongside the market-oriented goals, the concept drill rig will also help Sandvik to achieve its own ambitious sustainability goals, including its aim to halve the carbon footprint of the group’s operations by 2030.
The conversation on the future of sustainable surface drilling is now underway and the next chance to see the concept drill rig, following Vei og Anlegg, will be in Tampere, Finland, at Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions’ Customer Days 2022 in September.
Epiroc ups the surface drilling ante with PowerROC D60
Epiroc says its new PowerROC D60 is able to drill the largest holes in the PowerROC family thanks to a design offering high pressure operation as well as an increased penetration rate.
Wei Wen Xu, Product Company Business Line Manager at Epiroc, said: “PowerROC D60 has been working in the field for some time and has already delivered great results. This rig will definitely bring a lot of value to our customers.”
The PowerROC D60 offers a high level of productivity when it comes to drilling large holes ranging from 110 mm to 178 mm, according to Epiroc. On top of this, the 5+1 Rod Handling System makes it possible to drill holes down to a depth of 30 m. “Well-proven Epiroc technology ensure good quality and straightness of the hole,” the company said.
Features such as a pilot hydraulic system and straightforward electronic system make PowerROC D60 both easy to operate and easy to service, according to the company, with the rotary unit ensuring the rig can operate reliably in all types of rock conditions. In addition, a dust collection system ensures the work environment is kept clean and safe, protecting both machine and personnel.
“The PowerROC D60 hydraulic down-the-hole drill rig is safe, powerful and helps you increase your production capability,” Epiroc said. Matching this with the rig’s ease of maintenance and repair, ensures high availability and productivity, according to the company.
Wei Wen Xu said: “The PowerROC D60 rig performance will show that this is a very strong, competitive product for mining and quarrying. I’m convinced that this this rig will meet our customers high expectations – which is already confirmed with recent success in Russia.”
The Tier 3 version of the PowerROC D60 is available now. The Tier 4 Final version will be available in North America, Japan and Korea from July.