Drill cuts used in underground mines

• The principal patterns mainly used in UG mines

are:
1. Pyramid cut
2. Wedge cut
3. Drag cut
4. Fan cut
5. Burn cut
6. Coromant cut
7. Ring drilling
 Pyramid cut
• In this type, four or six shot holes are drived at
the middle of the face which at the end to form a
cone or pyramid shape.
• The length of the holes are approximately 15cm
more than the other type of holes.
• The charging is done mainly at the apex of these
cut holes, so that it creates a face to fire the next
with delays.
• These cuts are generally used for blasting hard
rock mass
Pyramid cut
 Wedge cut
• Here, 2 to 4 pairs of holes are drilled to form a
wedge , which is starting from two sides of the
drift centre and inclines at an angle less than 45
degree towards the centre to meet the back of
the hole along a line.
• This cut is suitable for uniform, thickly bedded
hard rocks.
• They consume least total quantity of explosives
but the depth of pull is restricted by width of
drift.
• Recommended for solid blasting.
Wedge cut
 Drag cut
• This type used for laminated rocks and for
controlled blasting in a small cross sectional
area to break the rock along cleavage plane.
• More numbers of shot holes are required in
this case compared to other pattern in the
same cross sectional area.
• Since it’s depending on the direction of
cleavage planes, not favor for large
excavations.
 Drag cut
• - cut holes

-trimmers FRONT VIEW END VIEW

 Fan cut
• This is used in laminated strata, mostly soft
and covers the face with fan like pattern.
• Charge in each hole is heavy because each
shot has to act for itself.
• This cut is not recommended for hard ground.
• Recommended for solid blasting.
 Burn cut
• Parallel holes are drilled at right angles to the
face in a cluster form.
• Some of the holes left uncharged to give relief
to the heavy explosives in the charged holes.
• This cut is effective in hard, brittle,
homogenous ground and breaks evenly.
• The spacing is 1.5 times the diameter of the
uncharged hole.
• The blasting is done in a sequence of hole.
Burn cut
 Burn cut
• The main advantage of this cut are
1. Time is considerably reduced.
2. Easy supervision.
3. Depth is dependent of the size of drift.
4. The blasted material is not projected far.
 Coromant cut
• To achieve greater advance in tunnels or drifts of small
area, this new type of parallel hole cut is used.
• It consists of a slot, which is left unloaded with outer
cut holes and location is important.
• The slot is produced by contiguous drilling of two
holes.
• 20mm drill rod with tapper and special drill bit of
57mm diameter.
• Depending upon the nature of rock, only one centre
hole may be possible.
• These cuts are mainly used in hard rock formation.
 Coromant cut
90mm

115mm

130mm

57mm
180mm
 Ring drilling
• For stopping operation in metal mines, ring
drilling is used.
1. Vertical ring drilling, the holes are drilled in
vertical plane like a fan to break to a vertical face
(sub level stopping).
2. Horizontal, holes are fanned out radially to
break to a horizontal face (shrinkage stopping).
• Short delay interval of 25 millisecond is usually
employed between holes in each ring, starting
from easiest breaking section in the middle
towards the walls.
 Drill patterns used in surface mines
• The drill cuts mainly used in open cast mines
are
• Square cut
• Diagonal cut
• Rectangle cut
• V-cut
• Staggered V-cut
Square cut
Staggered V-cut