Introduction
The design of stope ring rounds is both difficult to optimise and time consuming. AECI Mining Explosives developed the Ring software to assist its blasting engineers with the design and optimisation of stope ring layouts in mining and civil applications. The package, which grew through years of experience and learning, contains unique design features.
A powerful feature of the software is the ability to examine what-if situations by easily changing blasting parameters such as hole size, explosive type, initiating system type, etc. to see the effect on the total rock breaking costs. This is an extremely powerful tool to evaluate ways to reduce costs.
Using this software the blasting engineer can rapidly:
- Develop an appreciation for the finer points of design
- Define the perimeter of the ring to be blasted
- Optimise the number and position of the blast holes
- Address the charging of the blast holes
- Assign timing delays to each hole
- Obtain the efficiencies and costs of the design
- Estimate fragmentation
- Understand damage extents
- Visualise hole interactions with animation
The outputs include:
- Tabular printouts of hole design parameters
- Analysis of blasting efficiencies including:
- Powder factors
- Volumes and tonnages blasted
- Explosives consumption
- Drilling requirements
- Initiating system requirements
- Mean fragmentation estimates
- XYZ co-ordinates for automated drilling equipment
- Blast cost details and summary reports
Direct Data Import
This tool allow the user to import the co-ordinates of the desired profile /outline directly from an external source such as a CAD or Mine plan software suite, the requirement of the point co-ordinates are that they are comma separated and contain three values for the X,Y & Z values. Should the ring be vertical the Z values will be zero.
What is Ring Software
The Ring software follows a logical sequence when designing a ring layout. The process steps for most designs will be as follows:
- Database: Material and product that will be used in the design
- General Information: All the relevant information that will be required to identify a blast
- The details necessary to define the tunnel including the height, width, hole length, hole diameter, rock type, drilling equipment, costs, etc.
- Wizard: Tool used to guide the user through a design.
- Create Design Layout: On completion of the Wizard, use the graphical design tools to create the ring outline
- Design Check: Check the design and ensure if it is correct by applying engineering judgement. Remember Ring is a Computer Assisted Design system and not a substitute for an experienced blasting engineer
- Timing: Assign timing delays to design or export the holes to Tie-Up for timing
- Report: Print the final design and reports
The Design Wizard guides you through all the steps in order to complete the design and simplify the complete design process.
Reporting:
The User can run numerous reports in order to confirm or determine whether the design is at its most optimum. You can even compare different designs to each other to enable more informed decisions.
- Design summary report
- Hole Parameters Report
- Drilling Summary Report
- Explosives Consumption Report
- Initiation and Extras Summary Report
- Design Comparison Report
Key Features:
- Data based
- Simplified design process
- Reporting
- Timing feature
- Costing functions
- Simulation Firing
- Tabular co-ordinate import
- Customizable explosive distribution
- Directly compatible with AECI Mining Explosives's Tie-Up Software
System requirements:
Minimum system requirements
- Windows 7 32bit Operating system
- Pentium processor
- 2GB RAM
- VGA 1024x768
- 200MB free space on hard disk
Recommended system requirements
- Windows 10 64bit Operating system
- Quad Core processor
- 4GB RAM
- HDMI 1920x1080
- 250MB free space on solid state drive