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INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF EFFECTIVE BLAST BLOCK SIZE IN MINIMIZING DRILLING AND BLASTING COSTS IN OPEN PIT MINIES

Ali Akbar Mozafari

Abstract

Drilling and blasting operations are one of the most important mining processes in open pit mines which encompass the crucial part of mining costs. Today, despite the development of mechanized drilling in surface mining, blasting operation has remained as an inseparable part of mining operations in most open pit mines. This paper tries to develop a mathematical model for finding an optimal length and width of the blast block for minimizing drilling and blasting costs in open pit mines. With the approach, the most important parameters affecting the drilling and blasting operations in a blast block in open pit mines will be identified and investigated, in order to minimize the costs of drilling and blasting by focusing on the effective blast block size. In addition, the article introduced a comprehensive set of effective criteria to determine the appropriate size of the blast block using the multi-criteria decision-making method of fuzzy logic. In this regard, applicability score (AS), using an engineering approach, acts as a decision tool to determine the functional blast block selection. Model dynamism provides the ability to eliminate or add some properties, but the new correlation coefficients must be recalculated. Utilizing this decision model, the block size for production scheduling purposes can be predicted such that to have economic benefits and prevent the loss of natural resources. This model was implemented for Chadormalu iron ore mine and the results of different scenarios proved the validity of the model.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/1.3/s03.044

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