Q 1.

What are the factors influencing the location of

primary, secondary and tertiary openings?
The role of primary opening is to provide an access to the deposit from the surface and thus the life
of these openings is as much as the life of the mine.

Access to the ore deposit is first operation, which establishes the entry to the mine. For an
underground metal mine, the modes of entry to a deposit are: adit, incline, decline, a vertical shaft,
inclined shaft. Based on the geometry, strike & dip dimensions of the ore deposit, and depth one or
more combinations of different modes of access is decided. Once the deposit is accessed, in order to
commence the mine excavation of ore, various types of constructions within the rock mass are
needed for various engineering purposes. Some of these openings are vertical, inclined, parallel to
the strike and along the dip etc. The shape and the cross section of the excavation depend primarily
on the target production, purpose of the opening (transportation, ventilation, water outflow, etc.,),
nature & stability of the rocks type, the period of service. Permanent access and service openings,
are expected to meet rigorous performance specifications over a time span approaching or
exceeding the duration of mining activity for the complete orebody. For example, the service shaft
must be capable of supporting high speed operation of cages and skips continuously. Ventilation
shafts and airways must conduct air to and from stope blocks and service areas. Main haulage drives
must permit the safe, high speed operation of loaders, trucks, ore trains and personnel transport
vehicles. In these cases, the excavations are designed and equipped to tolerances comparable with
those on other areas of engineering practice. The mining requirement is to ensure that the designed
performance of the permanent openings can be maintained throughout the mine life.

Parameters influencing choice of location

1. Lowest capital expenditure
2. Lowest operating cost
3. Safe and reliable operating system
4. Flexible and efficient system
5. Supports the mine planning
6. Provides fast access to the ore body to promote early cash flow.
7. Geology and mineral resources
8. Hydrology
9. Depth of orebody
10. Flexibility for changes to mine plan, mining method, or expansion of project
11. Production tonnage requirements
12. Geotechnical inputs
13. Ventilation requirements
14. Capital and operating costs
15. Schedule completion i.e. commencement of cash flow
16. Availability of skills and labour requirements
17. Safety
18. Productivity and management of system.
 Secondary Openings
There are two categories of secondary development; first type is development in the nearest
proximity of the stope, like: the stope access levels such as haulage levels and ore passes which are
developed near stress filed zone of a stope orebody rock. Their operation life approximates that of
adjacent stoping activity.

The second type of development is concerned to a stope or in-stope development.

The location of secondary openings is based on the level interval of the deposit. Level is an opening
developed along the strike direction of an ore deposit and is driven with zero to near zero (1 in 200)
gradient. It is considered as the secondary mine development operation of an underground metal
mine.

Underground mining of ore deposits is necessarily worked with multiple levels. A level interval is
selected which lead to lowest overall mining cost for the mine development and exploitation plan
chosen.

1. Number of factors affects these costs and some of them are following:
2. geological and natural conditions of the deposit and country rock
3. method of mining
4. development layout
5. method of drivages of openings
6. Life of opening
7. Break-even analysis

The selection of optimum level interval is usually dependent on the development cost (construction,
supporting). Generally development cost increase with the number of main levels required whereas
exploitation cost as well as convenience of access for the miners decrease with increasing number of
levels. From the point of view of cost, a long interval between levels is desirable. However in case of
high grade ore deposits preclude higher level intervals. The levels are placed at a closer interval to
avoid missing high grade ore bodies.

Q 2. Transportation systems and machinery in Underground metal mines.

Ore transportation
1. Haulages
2. Conveyors
3. Shuttle cars

Rope haulages

1. Direct rope haulages

2. Endless rope haulages
3. Main and tail rope haulages

Direct rope haulage

Consist of one pulling rope and one haulage drum for hauling minerals in tubs or mine cars up a
gradient which is generally steeper than 1 in 10. The haulage engine is situated at the top of an
inclined roadway. The train of tubs is attached to one end of the rope, the other end being fixed to
the haulage drum. The empty tubs attached to the end of the haulage rope travel on the down
gradient by their own weight and do not require power from the haulage engine.

Endless rope haulages

In this system there are two parallel tracks side by side. One for loaded tubs and another for empty
tubs and the endless rope passing from the driving drum located at out bye end of the haulage road
to the in bye end and back again via a tension bogey. The tubs loaded as well as empties are
attached to the rope with regular interval with the help of clips so that the entire rope length has
tubs on it at intervals.

Main and tail rope haulage

The hauling engine is provided with two separate drums one for the main rope, which haul the full
train out and one for the tail which haul for the empty train in. When one drum is in gear, the other
revolves freely on the shaft but controlled when necessary, by the brake to keep the rope taut. The
main rope is approximately equal to the length of the plane and the tail ropes twice this length. Only
one track is required.

Locomotive haulage

1. Diesel locomotive
2. Storage battery locomotive
3. Over head wire locomotive

CONVEYOR SYSTEMS

BELT CONVEYOR

SCRAPER CONVEYOR

RIGID CONVEYOR

Shuttle cars
A shuttle car is a pneumatic tire mounted, electrically driven and low-height transport vehicle of 5-7
te capacity with an open topped and open-ended body, used for transport of mineral from face to a
central loading point. One shuttle car operating within 90 m range and fed by a 4 te/min mechanical
loader is capable of transporting nearly 150 te of coal per shift.