Breaking, Drilling & Blasting

A new MDS-2000 drilling system from Moba Mobile Automation AG is being used for the first time in a quarry in South America.
To monitor and control drilled blast holes in a granite quarry in Vacamonte, Panama, the company has equipped an HCR-1200 EDII-type drilling device from FRD Furukawa Rock Drill with the drilling system in collaboration with B-B-S Bohrsysteme.
Since installation and training of the machine operators, the machine is now operating in two shifts.
“The system allows for efficient machin

Recycling old concrete has never been easier or more cost-effective as Patrick Smith reports. Recycling is now a common method of utilising the rubble produced when structures made of concrete are demolished or renovated.
Rather than truck the old material to landfill sites, advances in equipment over the years coupled with greater environmental awareness, more environmental laws, and the desire to keep construction costs down, has made recycling an attractive proposition.
Indeed, a considerable amount

High in the French Pyrenees lays the world's largest talc quarry. Claire Symes visited Rio Tinto Minerals' Trimouns quarry to find out more

Mention talc, and most people would think of talcum powder but the soft mineral is actually essential to the manufacture of a huge number of items used on a daily basis. Many plastics, paints, foods, medicines, cosmetics, ceramics and paper, to name just a few products, all have talc as a central ingredient - but where does it come from? For over 100 years a signific

Scan and Save Health and safety - as well as operational and cost efficiency - are being radically improved, thanks to more sophisticated ways of understanding blast geometry. ABE takes a look at MDL's Quarryman system. Traditional working practices and techniques for assessing rock burdens provide only rough estimates of the actual rock face burdens. This means blasting has been associated with a poor health and safety record through dangerous rock fly incidents and varying efficiency.

Selecting the right drilling equipment and tools plays a key role in determining overall quarry productivity and efficiency. Claire Symes reports. Estimates suggest that drilling and blasting operations can account for up to a third of the total operational costs of some quarries, so maximising the efficiency is important. But the cost of choosing the wrong equipment can be significant and will also impact on the quality of the aggregate and performance of the whole quarry.

Hydraulic breakers are proving more popular for primary winning in quarries than ever before. Mike Woof visited Lopardo quarry in Italy to find out why. Nestling among the steep tree-covered hills close to the small town of Brienza near Potenza in Southern Italy lies the Lopardo quarry. The site covers a comparatively small area but the quarry has high walls because of the surrounding hills and this is a far more modern and efficient operation than its dimensions might suggest.

Investing in new equipment and using western quarrying techniques is helping one Chinese quarry to boost productivity. Second hand machinery, combined with high demand, means that some Chinese quarries are struggling to produce continuous supplies of aggregates for the construction market. Hong Kong owned Wah Tong Machinery Trading is working to overcome the supply problems in its Guangzhou quarry by investing in new equipment. The company is one of a new breed of contractors in the country, which are going