Blast design and optimization studies for a celestite open-pit mine in Turkey

Abstract

In this paper, the results of blast optimization studies for rock units of celestite open pit mine located in Sivas-Ula region have been presented and discussed. An extensive two years research programme was carried out to determine the optimum blasting conditions for five different rock units of this mine. Initially, the digging difficulty classifications of rock units had been done according to the current classification systems by using the results of field and laboratory studies. Then for gypsum, anhydride and celestite units, the optimum blasting conditions were obtained by trial-and-error method considering the applied blasting model and rock properties. Loader and/or primary crusher performances and unit cost were taken into consideration in order to analyse blast efficiency. In addition, to predict specific charge for practical purposes, an empirical formula was developed depending on two rock properties (unit weight and toughness) obtained easily and also some relationships between specific charge and rock properties were established by using multiple regression analysis.