Experimental determination of best performing cut in Lece underground mine

Abstract

Development operation in underground mining require high performance drilling and blasting. In order to determine best performing cut in Lece mine series of experiments were conducted. It was noticed that sequencing of initiation has crucial impact on cut performance. Line cut had experienced filling of empty holes with blasted material that was indistinguishable from the main rock. Finally, best results were obtained by delayed initiation of charges in circular pattern. Such cut construction provided complete hole recovery instead of previous poor results.