Thirty years ago, few people could have imagined the prevalence of digital wireless networks. These networks are now essential to many changes in the underground mining industry. It begs the practical question: How will the industry (and the world at large) develop in the 2020s?
The 2020 Underground Operator’s Conference in Perth (25-27 March) is one of the best places in the world to ask this question. The schedule is a combination of technical insights and big picture thinking, both of which are essential to the evolution of underground mining in years to come. For example, here are five ways underground mines will be re-imagined in the 2020s:
1. Fleet tracking
Even if manned vehicles continue to prove relevant in surface and underground mining, they will become smarter and more responsive to their surroundings. This is already happening in commercial vehicles with camera-based steering features.
Underground site-mapping will become more sophisticated with the use of drones, lasers, and other sensors. Underground fleets will be tracked and monitored with greater accuracy, resulting in better economy for the operator and environment.
2. Emissions mapping
The introduction of heavy electrical robotics might be a few years off. In the meantime, a lot of heavy equipment will have to run on diesel. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Co2 are an ongoing concern in the underground environment.
The NSW EPA has underground emissions squarely on its radar, as do a growing number of public and private agencies around the world. In the 2020s, it’s reasonable to assume that decarbonisation will be a persistent topic in Australia and globally. As a result, more underground mining vehicles will probably become electrified as decarbonisation progresses and underground emissions mapping grows more sophisticated.
3. Digital simulation
The use of digital simulation, both for training and strategic purposes, is a logical step for underground mining operators in this decade. From a training perspective, workers will benefit from increasingly realistic and detailed simulations of the mining site. By encountering practical challenges in a virtual environment first, people can be better prepared for situations they might encounter underground.
In terms of strategy, mining houses will create increasingly sophisticated simulations of active mining sites. These “digital twins” already exist, and are based on an expanding variety of data inputs (e.g. equipment sensors, RFID tags). As more data about the performance of a specific mining operation is gathered, strategic decisions can be analysed and simulated in the virtual environment, with better insight into downstream effects.
4. Advanced ventilation
The recent ventilation project at Goldcorp’s Borden project in Ontario is an ideal example of using IoT to make operations leaner and stronger. A vast underground ventilation system, driven by high-powered fans, responds automatically to the movement personnel and mining vehicles, all of whom are fitted with tracking devices. Specific areas of the mine are ventilated when personnel occupy and/or move toward those areas, resulting in a major cost savings – not to mention upgrades to air quality monitoring, personnel tracking, and overall safety.
Ventilation is a major energy expenditure for underground mining operations, and the right IoT applications can be used to reduce wasted energy. That said, any IoT application that would make underground mines more efficient has to keep safety in the foreground. Since digital systems can malfunction, redundancy will be key to the development of IoT.
5. Equipment maintenance
The days of expensive pre-emptive maintenance, and of costly downtime due to unplanned maintenance, appear to be numbered. Out-of-the-box and serviced solutions to the historical problem of equipment maintenance will multiply in the 2020s, and the best solutions will become more visible to underground operators. There will be limits, but operators will achieve higher levels of resourcefulness as equipment is dialled in to various types of monitoring.
6. Digital blasting
The moment of the blast is a lynchpin to success – do it wrong and productivity will fall. Fortunately, blast functionality has progressed to a high degree since the pioneering years of the 19th century. The latest solutions offer unprecedented multi-blast control with robust safety features, allowing a more surgical approach to the totality of underground operations. Digital simulations in particular will continue to influence blast engineering in the coming decade.
What comes next?
All of these topics are essential to an understanding of where the underground mining industry is headed today – but there’s a lot more to discuss, and in far greater detail, in Perth (25-27 March, 2020).
