Kinetic energy and its applications in mining engineering

Reduction of energy consumption in comminution is of significant importance in mining industry. To reduce such energy consumption the energy efficiency in an individual operation such as blasting must be increased. By using both new investigations and previous experimental results, this paper demonstrates that (1) kinetic energy carried by moving fragments in rock fracture is notable and it increases with an increasing loading rate; (2) this kinetic energy can be well used in secondary fragmentation in crushing and blasting. Accordingly, part of the muck pile from previous blast should be left in front of new (bench) face in either open pit or underground blasting. If so, when new blast occurs, the fragments from the new blast will collide with the muck pile left from the previous blast, and the kinetic energy carried by the moving fragments will be partly used in their secondary fragmentation.