Getting rid of the blockages in rural mining

Project

Newcrest is a major mining company within Australia operating several mines in the Orange area, primarily extracting gold.

One of the challenges Newcrest faces, is the occurrence of very large rock fragments which can jam a conveyor belt and costs many tens of thousands of dollars in downtime.

Giant machines smash the solid rockface into pieces which are then dumped on to a conveyor belt to be shipped back and up for processing and ore extraction.

But sometimes this pile of rock fragments at the coal face contains huge chunks buried beneath the surface, and it is essential to find (and splinter) them before they start their journey.

CSU worked with Newcrest Mining to establish the Newcrest Mining Laboratory to develop the use of ground penetrating radar for detecting hidden oversize rocks.

Campus

Bathurst

Lead Centre

Centre for Research into Complex Systems

Partners

Newcrest Mining

Link

• http://charybdis.csumain.csu.edu.au/crics/newcrest.php