Safe Rapid Drifting – Practical Constraints

2005

Fidelis Tawiah Suorineni, Paul Dunn, Peter K Kaiser,

Rapid drifting enables quicker access to orebodies, higher productivity rates and a resultant reduction in costs. Increased advance rates, by examination of the key components (face preparation and drilling, hole loading and blasting, scaling mucking and support installation) in the development cycle, and optimizing these processes is a high priority for research in the Canadian mining industry. Support installation time alone is about 30 to 40% of the total development cycle time. A reduction in support installation time or remote water jet scaling over muck provides commensurate gain in advance rate. Water jet scaling has the additional advantage of increasing cement-based liner support capacities when these are used as first pass support in rapid drift development. Research into the processes controlling rapid drift development suggests that there are many other factors (e.g. mine ventilation services) that have a significant impact on the rate of advance. These factors should be considered to promote and manage safe and rapid drift development. Constraints to the rapid drift development processes can only be overcome by sound construction management practices. In other words, the goals of rapid drifting can be achieved by the implementation of contractor-type construction management. This paper examines various constraints and processes affecting rapid drift development and draws attention to other factors affecting safe rapid drift development.

Keywords: Rapid drifting, Safe, Support, Water jet scaling, Constraints