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Introduction Background
At three of the largest Peruvian open pit mines, the two of Southern Peru Copper and Yanacocha Gold,
engineers have searched for long time, an explosive blend allowable to use in a width range of densities
and energy outputs, without a cost variation. In the heavy ANFO blends, any change in percentage of its
components, determine changes in density and energy delivery but also in the blend cost, since imported
Porous Prill Ammonium Nitrate (PPAN) may have significant price differences between one lot to
another, in function of the offer and demand. However, by the side of the emulsion, manufactured from
High Density Ammonium Nitrate (HDAN), a more stable pricing level can be expected.
The Gasified Explosive Emulsion (GE), hence, appeared as a simple solution for this task, due to its no
necessity of PPAN on its composition, in addition to its width range of densities that can be obtained in
the field and its high detonation performance thanks to its homogeneity.
Nevertheless, when the explosive column is compressed by the stemming load, a contamination zone is
created at the top of the column and, also, when the rock is highly fractured, it results in a losing of
explosive though the fractures and, therefore, a reduction of the column height and the effective powder
factor (Villanueva, 2015).
To prevent those inconveniences, trials were made by adding expanded polystyrene pearls to the GE,
intended to provide it with higher viscosity and better superficial tension to reduce the stemming
penetration. Figure 2-b shows the typical appearance of GE and polystyrene blend 60/40. Results in
both aspects were, in fact, acceptable however there was an important energy lost in the explosive
proportional to the pearls content- thus its application should be limited to soft rocks, where energy
demands were not too big.
As a consequence of previous field investigations at Colombian Coal mines, usage of High-Density
Ammonium Nitrate (HDAN) appeared as a reasonable solution (Wilches, Gonzales, & Proulx, 2015).
When adding a quantity of HDAN to the GE approximately 20% to 30% in mass- the detonation
behavior is superior to that of the Heavy ANFOs and explosive lost by the rock fractures is much less
than the pure GE. Based on these preliminary results, an aggressive trials program was organized, in
several mining operations at the same time, intended to obtain field results in different working
environments and various types of rock. Only variations in the density, by adjusting the gassing additive,
were practiced during the trials, trying to determine an ideal explosive density for a particular rock
characteristics and a pre-calculated blastability index.
First results were captured at Yanacocha gold mine, in holes of 0.27 m (10 5/8 in) in diameter and 11 m
(36.09 ft) in depth and almost immediately after, at Cuajone and Toquepala, giant Southern Peru Copper
mines, in holes of 0.31 m (12.25 in) in diameter and 16 m (52.49 ft) in depth. Each one of the three
operations represented a case study, because their own particularities; nevertheless, in all of them,
technical benefits and global cost savings were appreciated, as illustrated in this document.
Figure 1 shows the above-mentioned mines location. Yanacocha is located at the North of the country,
in the Department of Cajamarca, while Cuajone and Toquepala as the name of the owning Company
indicates- are located in the South, in the Departments of Moquegua and Tacna, respectively.
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In the case of the Southern Peru Copper mines (Cuajone and Toquepala), research was focused on the
technical-economical comparison of two explosives: the conventional GHA 70/30 and the new proposed
GE-HDAN 75/25. Figure 7 shows the explosive columns for both explosives.
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Historically, the best performance of the GHA 70/30 used to be obtained with a cup-density of 1.19
g/cm3 (74.3 lb/ft3). By other hand, after several test-error trials with the GE-HDAN 75/25, it was
possible to reduce density down to 1.13 g/cm3 (70.5 lb/ft3). Then and keeping the good fragmentation it
was possible to increase the stemming, reducing, in consequence, the explosive column height. This is
translated in a less explosive consumption per hole and / or rock mass (powder factor) and,
consequently, a lower blasting cost. Note that GHA is based on ANFO (PPAN and diesel fuel oil),
which incur in more costly materials.
In the case of Yanacocha the explosive column scheme is presented in the Figure 8. The standard
explosive was a Heavy ANFO (HA 40/60), with a density of 1.20 g/cm3 (74.9 lb/ft3). This was fully
replaced by the GE-HDAN 75/25, keeping the same explosive column height but reducing the cup
density to 1.10 g/cm3 (68.7 lb/ft3). Fragmentation results were measured to be the same but explosives
consumption dropped down.
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index P80 dropped from 0.3 m (11.7 in) to 0.23 m (9.2 in), which also hardly impacted in the crushing
process. Keeping the granulometry index P80 around of 0.27 m (10.5 in) one can reduce the explosives
consumption by increasing the Burden/Spacing pattern. It is the real goal of the GE-HDAN blend.
Figure 10 shows the remarkable reduction of the powder factor with the GE-HDAN blend, from 0.45
Kg/TM (1.9 lb/yd3) during first quarter of the year to 0.35 Kg/TM (1.5 lb/yd3) in July and August.
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Where the average of rock density is 2.5 g/cm (156.1 lb/ft3).
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It has begun testing laboratory to measure and compare the most used explosive blends in the Peruvian
mining. One useful method of examining the available work energy of an explosive is through cylinder
testing for determination of the ratio of chemical energy converted into useful work energy.
Parallel to this work we have been researching in how to improve the explosive emulsion formulation,
allowing using until 50% of HDAN without risk of fumes. At this manner, the explosive blend GEHDAN 50/50 will be more economical and technically suitable (Villanueva, 2015). In addition, it is
being carried out a compressibility study of the GE-HDAN (series of proportions) and its influence on
the VOD.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincere thanks to the Blasting Engineers Jess Cruces and Ricardo Puerta, from
Cuajone Mine and Yorhinio Len, from Yanacocha Mine, for giving me the opportunity to see, monitor
and analyze the experimental blasts on their respective operations.
I remain in a great thankful debt with the Explosives Company EXSA who, among to be the first to
make trials and introduced the massive application of the HDAN at Peruvian mines, provided me with
the chance to use and test it in different mines within the Peruvian territory. I am very grateful to Ronald
Aazco.
Also, my thanks to the Mining Engineering Department of the National University of Trujillo. Finally, I
would like to thank Engineer Juan Carlos Vsquez for his global advisory on all our research.
References
Tyler, D. A., & Taylor, M. W. (2008). Patent No. WO 2008/026124. USA.
Wilches, W., Gonzales, J. C., & Proulx, R. (2015). HDAN Emulsion Blend Implementation Results in
Open Pit Coal Mine. The International Society of Explosives Engineers Annual Conference (pp. 1-2).
New Orleans: ISEE.
Cooper, P. (1996). Explosives Engineering. New York: Wiley-VCH.
Esen, S. (2008). A non-ideal detonation model for evaluating the performance of explosives in rock
blasting,. In Rock Mech. Rock Engng. (Vol. 41, pp. 460-497).
Fleetwood, K. G., Villaescusa, E., & Eloranta, J. (2012). Comparison of the Non-Ideal Shock Energies
of Sensitised and Unsensitised Bulk ANFO-Emulsion Blends in Intermediate Blasthole Diameters.
International Society of Explosives Engineers, (pp. 7-10). Columbia.
Villanueva, R. B. (2015). XIII SIPERVOR. Open Pit Blasting Using Gasified Emulsion Based
Explosives: A Brief Overview of the Concepts and Practices ant Peruvian Mines. Lima: UNI.
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