How mine safety became a winning strategy for Orica
Placing and detonating explosives at the face of an underground mine has always been a dangerous environment for mine workers.
It’s a problem Orica has worked for five years to overcome by automating the placement and detonation of explosives, and for which the explosives company has won the Agriculture, Mining and Energy category of the AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards.
An Orica worker on the Avatel system moves miners out of the line of fire.
Avatel, which Orica developed in partnership with underground drill maker Epiroc, allows for the automated drilling of holes and placing of explosives at the mine face and their detonation via wireless detonators.
Workers can stay well away from the mine face, which is dangerous not because of the explosives but because it can be unstable, particularly during drilling.
The safer placement of explosives by the automated drill arms also opens up parts of mines which would previously have been considered too dangerous to exploit.
“As mines go deeper and steeper and hotter and ore becomes more difficult to obtain, it becomes even more dangerous, and it’s even more important that we can use things like autonomous technologies to keep people out of harm’s way,” says Angus Melbourne, chief technology officer at Orica.
Angus Melbourne, chief technology officer at Orica.
The use of wireless detonators is a major innovation because it replaces the unwieldy and messy wires that connect the explosive detonators with the mineworker setting the explosives off. Avatel employs a low-frequency wireless connection, which allows messages to travel hundreds of metres through rock, in contrast to the high-frequency Wi-Fi used in homes and offices.
Mine workers send an encrypted command via
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