Mechanized Rock Excavation with Atlas Copco – No 2 / 2014. EXPLORING LIFE deep inside the planet Continuous loading for Norway’s hydros Predator makes it big in Indian gas well Cutting fuel bills in Turkey’s quarries

nteraction, commitment and innovation have all been part of Atlas Copco’s DNA for more than 140 years. To meet your needs, we continuously expand our offerings through new product development and strategic acquisitions. Our aim is to provide you with a full range of innovative products coupled with application expertise and unparalleled support. By selecting the right combination from this offering, we can help you to achieve higher, sustainable productivity and a lower total cost of operation. For underground mining and tunneling applications, we cover the full drill and blast cycle, from drilling,...

FLYING high in fjord country Excavation of a new hydropower plant in the mountains of Norway is going full steam ahead thanks to the continuous loading technique and a loader called Häggloader.

The entrance to the 2.5 km headrace tunnel at the Govddesåga hydropower site in Norway. Below, Häggloader operator, Tryggve Naess on the morning shift. The Häggloader’s backhoe digger shovels blasted rock from the muckpile onto the conveyor. Below, the conveyor dumps the muck straight into the waiting truck. t the best of times, loading and haulage operations in tunnels with small cross sections present logistical challenges. And the longer the tunnel becomes, the trickier it gets. This was the scenario facing contractor Fauskebygg A/S when the company was assigned to provide the underground...

Govddesåga power station The Häggloader saved us the effort of excavating a lot more rock for loading bays. John Magne Hansen Shift Manager, Fauskebygg A/S, Norway will take full advantage of a steep, 226 m drop to the powerhouse. The construction work is divided into two 8-hour shifts with a crew of three for each shift – two drillers, using the Atlas Copco drill rigs Boomer M2 C and Boomer E2 C, and one loader operator for mucking out. Fauskebygg says it would have been difficult to achieve high loading efficiency at this site with conventional LHD vehicles. “In small tunnels such as these,...

Tunneling solution in the fjords: Continuous loading with the Atlas Copco Häggloader has solved a number of challenges for Norwegian contractor Fauskebygg A/S. Loader operator Lars Lunde (center) with Boomer operator Ronny Bakk (left) and Shift Manager John Magne Hansen (right). to one side using the loader’s backhoe digging bucket, which is also possible if the dual digging arms option is chosen. The boulders are then removed from the mucking point by an Atlas Copco Scooptram ST1030 LHD or left in place and blasted in the next round. Thanks to a built-in sprinkler system on the Häggloader, water...

>>>>> Products & progress >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The secret is in the bucket! The new sidedump option, seen here on the Scooptram ST1030, has a capacity of 4 m3. See it in action on the Atlas Copco Underground channel on YouTube. Scooptram gets more versatile Atlas Copco’s range of Scooptram loaders has just become even more versatile and productive with the addition of a side-dump bucket. he new side-dump bucket for the Scooptram ST7, ST1030 and ST14 is a smart option for miners and tunnelers as it enables these...

A perfect mix of high productivity and low fuel consumption: The SmartROC T45 at the Anakie quarry outside Geelong, where quarry owner Local Mix says it helped to increase the company’s profit from the first day it arrived on the site. A SMART DECISION Australian quarry increases productivity with SmartROC T45 For concrete and quarry company Local Mix, increasing productivity was simply a matter of finding the right drill rig. By all accounts, they’ve found it. he Anakie hard rock quarry outside the city of Geelong, on the south coast of Australia, supplies 500 000 tonnes of crushed rock and...

Steven Richardson (left) and Mat Teesdale saw the SmartROC T45 on show in Germany and later in action at Mt Magnet in Western Australia. After just eight months on the site, the SmartROC T45 had increased drilling efficiencies and reduced operating costs. Substantial fuel saving The SmartROC T45 is consuming an average of 13.77 liters of fuel per hour, confirms Teesdale. “That’s impressive enough, but even more so when you compare it to our old rig which was running at about 15.37 liters per hour, with increases to air of 4 bar and 115 liters per second, plus an extra 9 kW for the rock drill,”...

Bore tracking of blasts has seen accuracy between 85–100% This rig has a 3G modem installed rather than the usual base station system to access the GPS coordinates. This provides the flexibility to move to different sites while retaining all the features of HNS. Moreover, it has eliminated the inefficiencies and inaccuracies associated with manual measuring and markout of holes. Hole collaring is automatic and precise, as is the alignment of the holes at angles and depths that will deliver superior blast fragmentation. Markouts are being completed in 25% of the time and blast fragmentation is...

Barrick Porgera The Barrick Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea has become the first mine in the world to use an Atlas Copco DM 45 blasthole rig for in-pit grade control with reverse circulation drilling. reverse circulation (RC) kit that enables mines to use their DM45/50 blasthole drill rigs for in-pit grade control is now being successfully operated in the field. The first mine to take advantage of this technology is the Barrick Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea, located high in the mountains about 600 km northwest of Port Moresby. To accommodate the RC kit, the mine’s DM45 was upgraded...