The development of an inhibited explosive for black pyritic reactive shale

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:433572

Bellairs, P ^[1]

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1. Dyno Wesfarmers Ltd., Singleton, New South Wales (Australia)

The Hamersley Province is located 1,000km to the North of Perth the Capital City of Western Australia and is of major economic significance due to mining. A small but significant proportion of the waste associated with these deposits presents problems due to its ability to spontaneously combust and react with explosives resulting in premature detonations. This explosive rock interaction was initially highlighted in 1983 at the Mt Whaleback Mine when two blastholes loaded with ANFO and primed with a booster and detonating cord prematurely detonated. This paper details the techniques and procedures developed to overcome this problem which are based on temperature logging and the use of a high cost tear and acid resistant liners. The liner technology was developed due to the inability to produce an inhibited ANFO despite extensive test work in 1984. The introduction of emulsion technology enabled the inhibitor to be placed in the emulsion matrix which coats the AN prill in both emulsion explosives and higher density (plus 1.2 g/cc) Heavy ANFO. This concept was used to develop a suitable cost effective inhibited product (Heavy ANFO) based on Differential Thermal Analysis of a number of reactive rock samples collected from both the Mt Whaleback and Tom Price deposits. The final product inhibited the explosive ground reaction to a minimum of 170 C while still having about the same total energy and energy partition (shock versus heave) as the currently used explosive.

• OSTI ID: 433572
• Report Number(s): CONF-960262--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
CHEMICAL EXPLOSIVES
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
EXPLOSIVE FRACTURING
MATERIALS HANDLING
NEW SOUTH WALES
PERFORMANCE
SURFACE MINING