Industrial Trip to Vishwakarma Project (OCP)

This is my first ever mining industrial trip as vocational training through my department at IIT Kharagpur. I got chance to do my training in Open Cast Project (OCP)at Vishwakarma Project, Kusunda Area, Bharat Coking Coal Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited. On my first visit to this project, I was instructed to follow some rules like always wearing shoes while coming to the mines, always visit the mines with an employee, etc. From next day onwards, I started my visits to this mine. These visits are really amazing for me, the heavy vehicles running from one mine to another, some carrying the dust and waste rocks, some transferring coal from mine to the Coal Depot, etc. I got some general introduction about this mine with information regarding the science & technology involved in open cast mining processes.

Fig. 1. Vishwakarma Project (OCP)

Introduction
Vishwakarma Project is one of the latest OCP under BCCL. Many new machine and heavy vehicles are brought here for extraction of coal bed under the surface some of them are Dozer, Dumper, PC, Shovel, etc. This project is extracting coal at a depth of approximately 50 m. There is a relation between bedding, height and the quality of coal beneath the earths surface. In this project, the coal which has been extracted now has mixed coal of seem V, VI, VII & VIII. On going further deep, we can also find the coal of seem IV, III, II & I, but individually as shown in Fig. 3 and hence, the quality of coal is increasing going down the earth as

Fig. 2. Increasing Quality of Coal Seem

Fig. 3. Seem Strata of Vishwakarma OCP Till now, only known information about the strata shown in Fig. 3 is that the depth of the uppermost surface is 26 m whereas the same of the coal of mixed seem VIII, VII, VI, V is 18 m. At some places about half a km away from this OCP, seem IV & seem III has been extracting in underground mines. As, in underground mines most of the coal has been left in the form of pillar in pillar design to support the roof layer of underground mines, so the planning is going on to join the OCP with these underground mines, so that all those coal present in the pillar design can be extracted out.

Some of the terminologies related to mines are explained briefly: a. Dumper: A very heavy and big truck which is used to carry large amount of earth, heavy wastes & rocks out of the pit. b. Shovel: A very heavy machine used to lift the heavy and large rocks to the dumper. c. PC: A kind of the very heavy machine used to extract & lift the coal to the dumper. d. Dozer: Most heavy machine used to make ways in the pit mines and sometimes also used to bring damaged heavy machines from one place to another place. e. Coal Depot: A place where all the coal is being transferred with the help of Dumper and from where the coal is being transported to another place using small trucks. f. View Point: A place where all high ranked officers come to view the active part of the mines at once. g. Outsourcing: The term used when a particular part of the mines has been given to some private company to extract the coal. h. Driller: A heavy machine used to drill the surface vertically or horizontally for blasting purposes.

Fig. 4. Machines and Outsourcing area

Geological Survey

Strike: The strike line of a bed, fault, or other planar feature as a line representing the intersection of that feature with a horizontal line. Dip Direction: The dip direction is the azimuth of the direction the dip as the projected to the horizontal, which is 90 off the strike angle. E.g.: a bed dipping 30 to the south would have an East-West strike and written as 90/30 S using strike & dip, but 30/180 using dip & dip direction. Apparent Dip: Apparent dip is the name of any dip measured in a vertical plane that is not perpendicular to the strike line. True dip can be calculated from apparent dip using trigonometry if you the strike.

Fig. 5. Elements of Geological Survey of Mines

Fig. 6. Dip Direction of a Mine at Vishwakarma Project Survey Observations:

Strike: N-W to S-E Since, the coal bed shown in Fig. 3 is approx. 15 to South-West, so Dip Direction: 90/15 S-W Depth of this coal bed shown in from the surface: 26 m Height of this coal bed: 18 m (approx.)

Drilling, Explosives & Blasting

Drilling: A method used to drill down the holes for the purpose of the blasting in OCP. In this OCP, generally each hole is drilled of height 15 m with the help of a driller, two 7 m long drill rods and a 1 m long drill bit. Usually, drilling is done of size 150 mm diameter. Blasting: The technique used to blast out the contents of a particular area either to extract the coal or to go down the surface to find the surface the coal. This technique is economically more effective, but requires more attention to avoid any serious accident. Explosives: A chemical substance having very high velocity of detonation and can be ignited by a very small and effective ignition source and used in the blasting in a very large amount. In this OCP, SME (Site Mixed Emulsion) is used as explosive. SME: As the name suggests itself that this explosive is an emulsion which is site mixed, it is mainly used to avoid any kind of accident in transportation of any other type of explosive. Coal India Limited (CIL) imports this explosive from Malaysia.

Fig. 7. Site Mixed Emulsion explosive

a. Preparation of SME:

It is manufactured actually on site by addition of oxidizer, water & a catalyst to form a kind of liquor at 70C. A separate fuel phase is prepared by adding high speed diesel, furnace oil, soya lecithin and sorbitan mono oleate. The loading of aluminium powder and prills depends on the field requirements. At the site, the liquor and fuel phase are let into a blender and mixed at very high speed to produce emulsion. The gassing agent / perittie powder, aluminium powder and prills are added as required to this emulsion. All this processes is done in a large container shape room fixed on a vehicle.

Table 1. Properties of different kind of SME Properties % Emulsion Density (g/cc) Energy (cal./g) (cal./cc) Relative Bulk Strength Relative Bulk Weight Velocity of Detonation (m/s) (feet/s) Detonation Pressure (kbars) Water Resistance Minimum Diameter (mm) Loading Method 1116 100 1.25 650 815 0.74 1.13 5,200 17,100 85 Excellent 75 Pump 1136 P 70 1.25 725 910 0.82 1.25 4,600 15,100 66 Excellent 125 Pump 1146 P 65 1.25 750 940 0.85 1.30 4,500 14,800 63 Excellent 125 Pump HD 65 1.32 750 990 0.85 1.37 4,500 14,800 67 Excellent 150 Pump

Connections for Blasting: On the basis of flow of current, two types of connections are possible Series Connection: When all holes in a same line are connected in such a way so that they can blast without any time delay. Parallel Connection: When all holes in zero line are connected without any time delay but for further blasting, other holes are connected with a fixed time delay such that they can blast with a fixed time delay.

(a) Series Connection

(b) Parallel Connection

Fig. 8. (a) Series Connection and (b) Parallel Connection On the basis of the pattern of drill holes, connections are of two types-

V-Pattern: When the connections are done in V pattern with different or same time delay between each drill holes. Line Firing Pattern: When the connections are done in simple horizontal and vertical pattern with fixed or different time delay between each holes.

(a) V-Pattern

(b) Line Firing Pattern Fig. 9. (a) V-Pattern and (b) Line Firing Pattern

Some of the terminologies related to Blasting are explained briefly(a) TLD: Trunk Line Delay which is connected between drill holes to delay the time of blasting of the connected holes, and generally measured in milliseconds (ms). (b) DTH: Down The Hole detonator which is kind of wire with one end in the drill holes attached to the booster fitted with detonator of very high denotation velocity and other end outside the drill holes. (c) Booster: A chemical used to boost the velocity of detonation of the detonator fitted in it. (d) Detonator: An explosive with a very high detonation velocity used as an ignition source for explosive used for blasting (SME). One of its main compositions is TNT (Tri Nitro Toluene). (e) Zeros: This term is used for those drill holes which is directly connected to the remote control and blasted out at first. These holes are always made near the Free Face (FF). (f) Deck: This term is used for that level of earth inside the drill holes which is used to divide two layers of explosives. (g) Stemming: This term is used for the uppermost layer of the earth inside the drill holes. (h) Detonating Fuse: A kind of wire hanged from inside the drill hole to outside. Its ignition starts from top to bottom in such a way that it removes the surroundings from top to bottom. (i) Nonal: A kind of detonating fuses which on ignition removes the surroundings from bottom to top and hence much more effective than detonating fuse.

Fig. 10. Pattern of Drilling Holes

Figure shown in Fig. 10 shows the pattern in which a drill hole is generally arranged with the earth and explosives. Here one thing is to be noticed that the DTHs shown are connected to the boosters having variable delay time. This is so because to maximize the efficiency of the blasting, it is necessary for the drill holes to be blasted from inside to outside irrespective of the negligible time delay between different boosters at different level. In this figure, it is assumed that 100 kg SME will cover the height upto 4 m, but shown as 4.25 m due to gassing effect. Stemming must be done in that much sufficient ways so that during blasting, the effect of the detonator doesnt get decreased due to tiny gaps between the particles of the inert materials used in stemming. When the explosives are fired, the stemming locks together from the expanding gasses, and keeps the force of the explosion in the borehole a few thousandth of a second, until rock begins to break.