Block Extraction of Himalayan Rock Salt by Applying Conventional Dimension Stone Quarrying Techniques
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___________________________ MINERAL MINING ________________________________ TECHNOLOGY
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Block Extraction of Himalayan Rock Salt by Applying Conventional Dimension Stone Quarrying Techniques Y. Majeeda*, M. Z. Emada, G. Rehmanb, and M. Arshada a
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan *e-mail: [email protected] b Karakoram International University, Gilgit, Pakistan Received December 3, 2018 Revised July 1, 2019 Accepted July 3, 2019
Abstract—A salt block is a regular prism of rock salt containing least undesirable cracks which is mainly used for carving artifacts especially salt lamps, tiles and other products. This research work is focused on the comparison of three common and simple dimension stone quarrying techniques including wedges and feathers, expansive cement, and controlled blasting methods for the extraction of rock salt block. The selected techniques were applied at the underground working face of Khewra Salt Mines (Punjab, Pakistan) to extract representative blocks in accordance with a predefined field experimental program. In order to find out the most suitable block extraction technique in terms of the quality of excavated salt blocks, physical and mechanical rock property tests were performed comprising of core recovery, uniaxial compressive strength, Brazilian tensile strength, dynamic Young’s modulus, quality and P-wave velocity. This paper statistically confirms that the rock salt blocks excavated by using wedges and feathers method have higher quality in comparison to the blocks obtained by expansive cement and controlled blasting techniques. Further the results of overall technique wise comparison are also discussed. Keywords: Rock salt, block extraction, wedges and feathers, expansive cement, controlled blasting, physicomechanical rock properties. DOI: 10.1134/S1062739119045965
INTRODUCTION
Globally the rock salt deposits are mined by adopting either underground mining or surface mining (i.e. quarrying) operations depending upon the depth, thickness of overburden material and position of rock salt deposit. For the production of rock salt many techniques are available including drilling and blasting (D&B) method, mechanical excavation by using road headers, solution mining, solar evaporation and vacuum evaporation. However, drilling and blasting is the most commonly adopted technique which mines rock salt in lumpy form. Moreover, the massive underground rock salt deposits are being mined by adopting stope and pillar mining method, which allows mineral extraction of around 40% of the deposit, while the remaining 60% is left in form of pillars for providing support to the mine structure [1]. Nature has bestowed Pakistan with huge deposits of rock salt, existing in the Salt Range Formation, which is a Pre-Cambrian sequence o
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