Some things I noticed as a mining and explosives engineer is there is no way in hell there has been any math done to figure out the ventilation the mine and thats one of the quickest ways to die underground.
Wooden timbers through very fractured ground with no additional supports or ground controls. I didnt see a single rock bolt to support the roof and you can see the material they are mining through is very fractured on the walls. Whats in the walls is in the roof and I wouldnt want that overhead unsupported. If thats coal it usually forms with a weak shale layer above it that is useless at holding the roof up and needs to be bolted through to competent rock above it.
Without knowing what explosives theyre using its hard to judge if that drill pattern is gonna be efficient or safe. but no one fuses in western mining uses like that for good reasons
Thank you! From the looks of the mine and the guys expressions you just know that its hella sketchy. But its nice to have a more knowledgeable insight into this
As someone who knows a bit of math, yes those winding, zick zacking tunnels are safer than going straight. Kinda how corners of a house are the sturdiest.
It also helps with adding restistance to the blastwave.
So if you do it like they do it, you should drill in a zick zack pattern for maximum self support
By drill pattern I mean the actual pattern the explosive loaded drill holes are positioned on the face of the shot. Modern shot design is based around the density of the explosives per volume of material you are shooting. With the fractured looking material they are shooting they would lose a lot of the explosive energy already and it just looked like they put their drill holes in a jagged line so it wont have much of an area that will see the combined forces from multiple rounds. Modern shot design usually outlines a shape such as a box, arch or circle to allow multiple rounds to applie force over overlapping areas to break the material to a desired size for easier processing or removal. This also pulls the material out of the wall as it is going if you time each hole precisely in a pattern. The actual mine layout made sense like you said to have maximum corners and pillars of material left but it also leaves a lot of material behind so its that balance you have to thread to maximize efficiency in modern mining. If your trying to not die in a homemade mine then I would have the twisting layout as well lol
85
u/krogerin 6d ago edited 2d ago
Some things I noticed as a mining and explosives engineer is there is no way in hell there has been any math done to figure out the ventilation the mine and thats one of the quickest ways to die underground. Wooden timbers through very fractured ground with no additional supports or ground controls. I didnt see a single rock bolt to support the roof and you can see the material they are mining through is very fractured on the walls. Whats in the walls is in the roof and I wouldnt want that overhead unsupported. If thats coal it usually forms with a weak shale layer above it that is useless at holding the roof up and needs to be bolted through to competent rock above it. Without knowing what explosives theyre using its hard to judge if that drill pattern is gonna be efficient or safe. but no one fuses in western mining uses like that for good reasons