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Submitted
February 16, 2023
Published
March 31, 2024
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Abstract

During the early stage of open pit mining in the Huni Pit of Damang Gold Mine, the pit was shallow. The established distances to the public road on the west was 756 m and 646 m to the East and North respectively. The blast exclusion zone established was 959.80 m and 500 m radius expansion from the 960 m Reduced Level (RL) from the crest line of the pit to the north and east respectively for extra safety precautionary measure with nine (9) blast guard positions. A review of the blast exclusion zone was done on the 912 m RL with empirical models. From the computations, the maximum horizontal distance the flyrock could reach is 220 m and 277.45 m for blast hole diameters of 115 mm and 127 mm with the same stemming length of 2.0 m. These projected maximum horizontal distances are far less than the distances to the public road. Hence, the blast exclusion zone has been reduced to 500 m as recommended by Minerals Commission of Ghana. The revised blast exclusion zone has removed the inconvenience associated with travelling from Damang via Akyempim to Twifo Praso, Takoradi, Cape Coast and Accra during blasting times.

Keywords

Blast Exclusion Zone Blasting Times Flyrock Safety Mining

Article Details

Author Biographies

Bright Akuinor, University of Mines and Technology, Mining Engineering Department, Tarkwa, Ghana

Bright Tsidi Akuinor is Postgraduate Assistant and a PhD candidate in the Department of Mining Engineering, UMaT, Tarkwa.  He has over 3 years working experience in both surface and underground mining. He also had his BSc. Mining Engineering from UMaT and is a professional member of Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE). His research areas are explosives and rock fragmentation, environmental impacts of blasting, artificial intelligence-machine learning and environmental impact assessment.

Abraham Benin, Gold Fields Ghana Limited, Abosso Gold Fields, Tarkwa, Ghana

Abraham Kwesi Benin is a distinguished mining engineer with over 28 years of surface and underground mining experience. In 1994, he graduated from the KNUST-School of Mines with a Diploma in mining engineering. In 2007, he got his MSc in environmental management from KNUST. From 1995 to 2000, he worked as a mining engineer at what was then called Ashanti Goldfields Limited Obuasi. From 2000 to 2008, he was the quarry manager at granites and marbles Co. Limited. From 2008 to 2011, he worked as the senior manager of mining engineering for Upper Quarry Limited. Between 2011 and 2012, he worked at Maxam Ghana Limited as the pit superintendent. He worked at Perseus Mining Ghana Limited as a drill and blast engineer from 2012 until 2017, when he left as a senior production engineer. Since 2017, he has been the unit manager for drill and blast at Goldfields Ghana Limited, Abosso Goldfields.

References

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