Jacek Paraszczak

• PhD, ing.
• Université Laval

The loading process in sublevel caving mines entails loading material from the drawpoint using load haul dump machines that transport the material to orepasses or trucks, depending on the mine conditions. When each bucket is drawn from the drawpoint, a decision must be made as to whether loading should continue or be stopped and the next ring blast...

The use of automatic load-haul-dump (LHD) machines in underground metal mines is a promising way to overcome some of the challenges now facing mining companies. They offer several potential benefits over man-operated units, mostly in terms of safety and health of the workers, but also in terms of higher availability, increased productivity, and red...

High energy cost and high wind resource are creating an interest for wind-diesel hybrid power production for remote grids in the Canadian North. With the first industrial wind turbine in Nunavik, the Raglan Mine has demonstrated the benefits and viability of wind power as an economical way to produce fuel savings and environment benefits. Results f...

Due to safety concerns, automation of load-haul-dump (LHD) machines receives considerable attention from the mining industry. This paper analyses and discusses the issues and problems related to implementation and use of autonomous LHDs in underground metal mines. It presents the need for safety measures, infrastructure and discusses technical prob...

Energy consumption rises as mines extract ore from deeper levels. Rising energy costs, increased public scrutiny and enhanced awareness of carbon emissions are factors which can influence mining companies to examine and reduce their energy use. A comparison of best practice energy management initiatives of the 1970's with more recent activities rev...

Metal mining at great depths is associated with a high demand for fresh air required to cool down mine openings, evacuate noxious gases and contaminants, as well as to provide sufficient amounts of oxygen for miners. Diesel powered load haul-dump (LHD) machines, trucks and other mobile equipment used extensively by modern mines not only emit exhaus...

Diesel-powered equipment is a backbone of modern underground metal mining. Despite its numerous advantages, emissions of exhaust gases and heat constitute a serious concern with regards to ventilation and its cost, particularly in deep mines. Moreover, regulations concerning the use of diesel engines underground become more and more stringent and r...

Diesel powered equipment has gained huge popularity in underground mines around the world in the last several decades due to their productivity, versatility and flexibility. However, this equipment emits important amounts of gaseous and particulate pollutants that necessitate a considerable increase in ventilation airflow requirements in order to s...

Underground mining in cold regions of the world requires the heating of fresh air intake. On the other hand, exhaust air is usually discharged to the atmosphere at much greater temperatures than the ambient air. Using a medium such as water or glycol, heat can be extracted from the exhaust air and transferred to a desired location for use. In some...

Mining industry is a substantial consumer of the energy indispensable to power mining and mineral processing equipment and processes. As more and more mine operations move to remote locations, the access to reliable, secure and environment friendly energy sources becomes a key concern. At present, a great majority of remote mines relies heavily on...

Maintenance strategy selection plays a significant role in mining design. The nature of maintenance strategy selection is a complex multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem including both tangible and intangible parameters which are often in conflicting with each other. Moreover, when decision makers are uncertain in determining and defining t...

Assessment of the possible impact of existing and future mining projects located in remote areas may be difficult and costly. This may have an adverse effect on the process of issuing mine permits and development of new mines. A remote sensing based land cover change assessment methodology presented in this paper is a promising avenue to render thi...

Most of loading and haulage operations in modern open-pit mines are done with shovels and off-highway trucks. This paper presents a new methodology based on the use of queuing theory and aimed at optimisation of the number of trucks in shovel and truck systems, as well as system's performance (production) and cost. In the first part of the paper a...

This paper discusses possibilities of technology and knowledge transfer from the Nuclear industry to Mining Operations in the field of Reliability and Maintenance. Both industries face important challenges with regard to safety, productivity and environment. The Nuclear Industry has achieved significant levels of productivity while remaining safe t...

Productivity and efficiency of mining equipment are among the most important factors contributing to unit mining cost, and measuring and benchmarking them is one of the best ways of identifying the possibilities of improvement. It is in this context that the present paper discusses the notion of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). The paper revi...

A remote sensing based land cover change assessment methodology is presented and applied to a case study of the Oil Sands Mining Development in Athabasca, Alta., Canada. The primary impact was assessed using an information extraction method applied to two LANDSAT scenes. The analysis based on derived land cover maps shows a decrease of natural vege...

KGHM “Polska Miedz” is the most important producer of electrolytic copper in Europe. In an effort to become more competitive, the company intends to reduce substantially owning and operation cost of the underground mining equipment employed in its mines. Adequate reporting, analysis and well-founded decision-making are among key factors in improvem...

For mining companies facing strong international competition and unfavourable commodities' prices, automation of underground operations has the potential to increase productivity and help cut costs. However, despite considerable technological progress in this field, there still remain many problems to overcome. Furthermore, successful implementatio...

This paper focuses on the methodology to cal-culate the effective reclaiming capacity of rail-mounted bucket wheel reclaimers, and stacker/reclaimers, for large-scale raw bulk ma-terial handling systems. Due to considerable gaps in the theory on this subject, a principal ob-jective of the work presented here was to de-velop a methodology destined t...

For most models of rail-mounted reclaimers and stacker/reclaimers available on the market, a unique correlation appears to exist among the design parameters. This paper presents a study intended to investigate and determine the mathematical form of this relationship. It is based on statistical and correlation analysis performed on the technical spe...

High productivity of the equipment employed is one of the key factors in reducing production cost in mining. One of the best ways to achieve it is an increase in availability In order to identify the most adverse factors affecting it reliability and maintainability analysis ought to be done. if its results are to be conclusive, a sufficient amount...

In order to increase productivity and reduce the cost of mining operations, the equipment used should be highly dependable. This can be achieved through its higher reliability and better maintainability. Because these concepts are relatively new in the mining industry, many problems are encountered. In this paper, problems concerning basic ideas, t...

Radial–axial rock splitters are potential primary mechanical excavating tools for underground hard rock mines. In an effort to further guide the development of a working prototype, a series of laboratory, field, and numerical experiments were conducted. The results of a three-dimensional finite element analysis of a radial-axial splitter used to br...

Water-powered jackleg rock drills, introduced recently in South African mines, are reported to be more efficient, faster and more comfortable to operate than conventional pneumatic drills. Comparative testing of these drill types was performed in Quebec. Based on the test results and on time studies performed in the mines, water-powered drilling wa...

Although efforts toward producing a "total quality rockfill product" have allowed cemented rockfill costs to be reduced considerably, there is still tremendous potential for further cost reductions. Cemented rockfill costs range from approximately USD7 to USD12 per tonne of fill placed. Approximately fifty percent of the rockfill costs are associat...

In the first part of this paper the technical and economical aspects of water-powered drilling are discussed. This technology, originally employed in South Africa, received some interest from Canadian mine operators. In this context a comparative experimental study of pneumatic and hydraulic (oil- and water-powered) jackleg drills has been realized...

Existing rock splitting technology is reviewed. Its application to hard rock mining is discussed. The concept of rock splitting is outlined and equipment used is described. Practical considerations for mining operations using rock splitting are also given. Factors to be considered in the selection and use of rock splitting are addressed. -P.M.Taylo...

The pneumatic jackle drill remains a widely used tool in development and productioin drilling in many small-scale and narrow-vein underground mining operations in North America. Several drawbacks of this technology (unsatisfactory drilling rate, noise, vibration, presence of oil mist, etc.) and the successful introduction of water-powered jackleg d...

Mining narrow vein ore bodies involves a number of problems for mine operators. Mechanization is expected to increase the efficiency of this important mining sector. The demands of the industry have been recognized by many equipment manufactures who have extended their range of products. More and more micro- and mini-scale, high performance equipme...

Extensive study has shown that it is necessary to apply additional picks to a shearer in order to eliminate or diminish the forces pushing it out of the coal face. The presented design of the cutting drum with three or four additional picks has met these conditions, and tests and observations have confirmed the value of this design.