Mining University

Blast Hole Depth Script

When designing a blast, it is important to know how deep each of the blast holes should be. Vulcan has an option in the ‘Drill and Blast’ tools in the ‘Open Pit’ menu, but what do you do if you don’t have this menu? The referenced script will allow the user to identify the distance from the hole collar to a given elevation and output this value to the point name.

I first came up with the idea for this script when we were having trouble controlling the bench level on each bench. The floor of the pit was becoming increasingly uneven and management’s method of solving the problem was to have the survey crew shoot in each collar, calculate the depth to the next bench (plus sub drill) and mark it on the stake for that hole. I didn’t want my friends on the survey crew to take hours out of their day to write elevations on wooden stakes so I put together this little script. Now they print the blast pattern with hole depth and give it to the driller, leaving them with plenty of time to survey working faces for me .

Download the script here:
point_rl_ref_rl.lava

Chronos Mine Plan Destination Script

Chronos is a powerful mine planning tool, but the format of the ‘destination’ tab leaves much to be desired. The following script copies the results in the Chronos destination, into a new tab, in a format that allows for the creation of reports and pivot tables with familiar Microsoft Excel tools.

The mine scheduling tool available with Maptek Vulcan, is Chronos (named for the Greek God of time). Chronos combines the visual functionality of Vulcan with the spreadsheet tools in Microsoft Excel. The different tabs created in excel mirror the actual mining process. The initial mining blocks are kept in a ‘Reserve’ sheet until they are scheduled by the Chronos ‘Process.’ Scheduled blocks appear in the 'Destination' tab in a uniquely Maptek format. Final results can be reported out in the 'Period Summary' tab.

The Hitachi EX-5500 is an impressive machine that moves a lot of material with its 35 cubic yard bucket.
I have to admit that one of the big reasons that I got into mining was the big equipment. I think that the fact that I am a big guy plays into this a little bit. It's nice to see that there are things in life that are truly huge and impressive. I don't think that I went on a field trip at the University of Utah where I didn't get my picture taken in front of one of the big haul trucks.
One of the drawbacks of working for Maptek Vulcan is that I wasn't able to be around this big equipment as often. Now all that has changed. At the mine last month we got a new, bigger shovel.
I can't believe how big this shovel is. It is so big and powerful that it makes the 300 ton haul trucks look like empty shells. This new shovel can't help but increase what is being produced in the mine plan.
The only thing better (bigger) than the 5500? A wire rope shovel!