Loading of explosives
AssigneeAel Mining Services Limited
InventorsHorst Wolfgang Friedrich Von Lengeling, Ewan James Sellers, Mauritz Kotze, Peter Robert Wight
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system (10) for loading a flowable explosive into blast holes includes a mobile explosives supply unit (12) having at least one explosives feed line for feeding a flowable explosive from the supply unit (12) into a blast hole, a global positioning system (GPS) unit (14) operable to determine the position of a blast hole, and a blast hole identification processor (16) in communication with the GPS unit (14) operable to receive from the GPS unit (14) a blast hole co-ordinate position. The processor (16) is configured or programmed uniquely to identify the blast hole based on the co-ordinate position of the blast hole.
Claims15
A system for loading a flowable explosive into blast holes, the system including
- a mobile explosives supply unit having at least one explosives feed line for feeding a flowable explosive from the supply unit into a blast hole and a plurality of reservoirs or containers for holding a flowable explosive or flowable explosive components, the mobile explosives supply unit also including a plurality of explosive component feed means to feed flowable explosive components from their respective reservoirs for mixing to form a flowable or pumpable explosive, and a flowable explosive feed means for feeding a flowable explosive through the at least one explosives feed line into blast holes;
- a global positioning system (GPS) unit operable to determine the position of a blast hole;
- and
- a blast hole identification processor in communication with the GPS unit operable to receive from the GPS unit a blast hole co-ordinate position and configured or programmed uniquely to identify the blast hole based on the co-ordinate position of the blast hole, the blast hole identification processor being in communication with one or more of the explosive component feed means, and/or with the flowable explosive feed means and being configured or programmed to control the feed means to load a predefined or calculated amount of explosive of a desired composition into at least some blast holes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.