AECI Mining Explosives is leading the way in advances across the mining explosives sector.
Innovation and technological development are essential components of business strategy in every sector across the globe, and mining is no exception.
AECI Mining Explosives continues to invest significantly in research and development (R&D) in its quest to help the mining industry achieve better blasting outcomes.
“We pride ourselves in developing innovative solutions in the initiating systems and commercial explosives space,” AECI Mining Explosives product portfolio manager – electronic initiation systems Ashlin Pillay said. “That’s how we remain at the forefront of technology and constantly pursue sustainability and continuous improvement.”
Inherent safety
The AECI product range is underpinned by inherently safe design principles, which includes thoroughly testing electronics before they are used in the field.
“This ensures that there is no compromise and, as a result, all of our electronic initiation systems and detonators benefit from the same intrinsically safety features,” Pillay said.
“We’ve subjected our electronics to high voltage which simulated a lightning strike. This resulted in uninitiated detonators due to the designed protective circuitry.
“We’ve ensured by design that our detonators are only initiated by our control equipment.”
AECI has announced a further development in its electronic initiation systems offering.
The DigiShot® Ranger has been specifically designed to cater for smaller mines, quarries and civil blasting operations.
In line with inherently safe design principles, the DigiShot Ranger’s built-in long-range antenna enables the system to transmit a safe encrypted blasting signal up to 3km away when a line of sight maintained, allowing a remote blast if required.
“We’ve been working tirelessly to improve our offering for mid-tier open-cast mines, civil blasting activity and quarrying operations,” Pillay said.
“The original DigiShot system is a reputable and accomplished product; however, advancement in technology allows us to better support the modern-day customer and system requirements.
“The lessons we have learned from the DigiShot system have been engineered onto a technologically advanced platform concurrently integrating new technology, data and third-party requirements to create the DigiShot Ranger.”
Strong foundations
According to Pillay, the DigiShot Ranger works with AECI’s fourth-generation detonators, which enables storage of a wide variety of data on the detonator and tagger, including bench activity.
The last detonator check function also ensures all detonators on the string receive the blast command.
“The new system keeps the portability and ease-of-use of the original DigiShot system requiring minimal training, but the DigiShot Ranger doubles the detonator capacity (to 600 from 300), and gives the operator flexible tagging options, plus automatic detonator detection,” Pillay said.
AECI’s LogShot® is a complementary software package that informs users of the blasting activity and allows operators to extract detailed post-blast activity logs.
“This is very useful for consolidating the activity of the blast itself, along with the inventory management of detonators, while highlighting typical problems users may have experienced,” Pillay said. “The DigiShot Ranger also logs user interface activity, which makes it easy to conduct operator safety audits as it can also be used to determine if there is supplementary operator training required.”
Customers can also build their very own blast library on ViewShot® Express, detailing blast design parameters which may be used for future blasts in similar geological conditions during blasting. This is an important safety aspect, but can also help to improve operational efficiencies.
Attention has been given to the DigiShot Ranger’s ergonomics and user-friendliness. The flexibility in tagging methods defines multiple options to allow for traditional tagging and the more modern tag-by plan. The latter allows for tagging on-bench with delay and location from the pre-designed blast plan, which mitigates user input errors.
With smarter tagging methodologies, movement on the bench can be reduced and optimised. The tagger has been designed to function as an inherently safe device and cannot generate the required blast voltage or blast commands to initiate the blast – the blast command is stored in a near field communication (NFC) blast card.
ESG considerations
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) is a fundamental element in the way that AECI Mining Explosives conducts its business.
With the DigiShot Ranger, for example, the focus on safety and operational efficiency addresses the social aspect, while the improved blast efficiencies irrefutably contribute to the environmental area, and the detailed blast logs that are generated help with governance by improving reporting and compliance.
“At AECI Mining Explosives, our focus is on continuous improvement along the whole value chain,” Pillay said.
“The DigiShot Ranger evolution is just one example of the company’s holistic and flexible approach.”
This feature appeared in the August 2023 issue of Australian Mining.
