Hexagon Mining brings precision and reliability to one of the most challenging stages of mining using its new drill and blast manager, HxM Blast. In a single interface it unites the design of drilling plans, inclusion of blasting parameters for the holes and moorings to the fire plan. In this way HxM Blast brings much more control over the design, management and reporting of drill plans.

HxM Blast can work with existing fire plane polygons in MineSight or digitize a new one within the tool. For this you can count on extremely easy options, assignments of Templates and pre-defined functions for the design, naming your holes and defining dimension values for the mouth of the holes, for example. The configuration of spacing and spacing of the holes is completely dynamic, to facilitate the customization of the plan to your needs.

One of the most important tools in HxM Blast Design is the user's ability to define the drill mesh for production in conjunction with the pre-split holes, and all this in a simultaneous and interactive way. Anyone who has tried to do this manually knows the tremendous headache this causes. The whole process is simple and fast, saving time and money.

Many factors influence blast quality. The geological and geotechnical characteristics of the rock are intrinsic to the material, however the parameters of the fire plan, such as hole spacing, depth, diameter and type/quantity of explosive used can be variable. The ability to dynamically change these parameters in response to information obtained during drilling is critical to achieving good material fragmentation.

With the automation of the HxM Blast, it can communicate directly with the drilling fleet manager database and with the explosives sales system and thus enable better planning of the fire plan according to the disposition of the drills in the mine and regarding the types of explosives available for detonation, making it essential for decision-making.

With the possibility of visualizing the areas and volumes of influence, it is possible to predict the results before the material is detonated.

HxM Blast stores data in its own database or in SQL, thus facilitating communication between MineSight's drillhole manager (MSTorque) and mine sequencing products (Atlas).

Then, once you have defined your drilling plan in HxM Blast, you can store this data in the MSTorque database, making it easier for other people involved in the project to load them again and thus update it with the latest information, load explosives into the holes and save it in the database.

This also makes it easier for other users to insert them in the Atlas, linking to this detonation plan a sequencing of activities with a Gantt chart so that they have greater precision in the duration of drilling, loading and detonation time.

The summaries and reports in HxM Blast will make it easy to optimize fire plans while tracking information such as explosive usage. The tool also has validation options and solutions for geometric problems, saving time and increasing production. The export options are varied, and allow a wide range of customizations.

In future versions HxM Blast will include blasting simulations, analysis and optimizations to reduce the workload for users, who will be able to load or optimize blasting parameters in critical stages.

HxM Blast will be released in phases and the first version is already available for “MineSighters”:

• Version 1.xx – Inclusion of advanced drill plan design tools such as offset drill lines, volume influence solids, rules for naming holes, and making trim shot meshes, and a wide range geared towards flat design.
• Version 2.xx and 3.xx – Added fire plan design tools, plan connection options (manual and automatic) and simulations and optimizations.

“HxM Blast will reset detonation”

“A bad blast can undo all the good work done by geologists and engineers in developing the mine model and mine plans.”

“Therefore, it is vitally important that the design and execution of the fire plan minimize errors and interpret the effects when things do not go as planned”

Mark Gabbitus,

Senior Product Manager for Geology and Operational Control at Hexagon Mining MineSight

For more information about this release or other MineSight tools, contact client-relations@prominas.net.

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