One of the largest quarries in the state of Georgia, Midsouth Aggregates’ Warren County operation, has implemented Orica’s latest FRAGTrack Conveyor technology to produce optimal aggregate, reducing operational costs and increasing saleable product.
The site has faced challenges designing blasts that consistently produce aggregate close to the economically optimal band of ¾-in. to 2-in. Without careful blast design, blasts produce too much oversize or fine material, resulting in high processing costs and increased waste. Therefore, it was crucial for Warren County to continuously improve blast designs to produce a size distribution that minimized downstream costs and increased saleable product.
To help resolve Warren County’s concern, Orica proposed to have a FRAGTrack conveyor unit installed next to the primary crusher. The automated fragmentation measurement device, delivered as part of Orica’s BlastIQ Digital Blast Optimization Platform suite, captures real-time fragmentation measurement data for downstream unit productivity improvement and tracking of operational performance.
David Stewart, senior production manager at Midsouth-Aggregates, said, “The installation experience was effortless. The equipment arrived, we made the brackets and installed it easily. As a result, we have had significant uptime and it has been very low maintenance for our operation.”
Acting as a critical piece of the puzzle, FRAGTrack helps to provide Warren County with rapid insights into the blasting outcome, enabling them to quickly evaluate and optimize their blast designs to maximize the amount of saleable product. Besides utilizing the measurement data for optimization, the data is also retained and transferred off as knowledge to upskill the team and ultimately the DNA of the operation.
“Every ton of rock that goes through comminution adds cost and generates waste. Every 1% reduction in fines I can achieve will generate an extra $250,000 to my operation; it’s a multi-million-dollar opportunity that goes straight to my bottom line. With FRAGTrack, I can see how my blast designs change this and it allows me to maximize whatever finished product I can deliver,” Stewart said.
Orica, www.orica.com