Drill and blast settings

You can use this function to specify the default settings that will apply when you perform Drill and Blast work in Surpac.

To run this function: Choose Design > Blast design > Blast design > Drill and Blast Settings, or...

In the Function Chooser, type BLAST MODIFY DEFAULTS, and press ENTER.

Fields on the Blast design defaults form, Drilling Defaults tab

Field	Description
Measurement system	The measurement system that you use in drill and blast in your mining operation: either metric or imperial. You can specify which units of measurement to use in the Mass units, Length units, and Volume units lists. The items in those lists are either metric or imperial units depending on the Measurement system you select.
Hole Diameter	When you perform some operations in blast design, you must specify a hole diameter, for example, when you create a blast pattern. This is the default value for all Hole diameter fields in drill and blast.
Mass units	The unit of mass that you use for drill and blast. Note: When you set Mass units, make sure it accords with the cost of explosives per unit mass, and the mass per booster on the Charging Defaults tab.
Length units	The unit of length that you use for drill and blast.
Volume units	The unit of volume that you use for drill and blast.
Drill rigs	The names of the drill rigs that you use in your blasting operations. To rename a rig so that its name is more meaningful, click in the cell, and type the new name.

Fields on the Blast design defaults form, Charging Defaults tab

Field	Description
Explosives
Explosive Name	The name of each main explosive.
SG	The density of each explosive.
Cost per unit mass	The cost of the explosive for each unit of mass. The following example shows how this field is used: The unit of mass (specified on the Drilling Defaults tab) is kilograms The currency you use to buy explosives is dollars The Cost per unit mass of the explosive ANFO 0.8 is 0.7. Therefore, ANFO 0.8 costs 70 cents per kilogram.
Boosters
Booster Name	The name of the booster to use.
Mass per booster	The mass of each booster in the unit of measurement for mass, which is specified on the Drilling Defaults tab.
Cost per booster	The cost of each booster.
Detonators / Delays
Product	The product name of each detonator.
Delay Name	The name that you give to each type of detonator. Because the product name can have many characters, it is useful to have a shorter name to work with.
Delay Time (ms)	The time delay, in milliseconds, on the detonator. Note: This is distinct from the surface delay, which you set on the Firing defaults tab.
Cost per unit	The cost for each detonator in the currency that you use in your mining operation

Fields on the Blast design defaults form, Rock Classifications tab

Field	Description
Rock Name	The name of each rock type you might drill and blast. When you create a blast pattern, you can modify the burden and spacing according to the rock type. To do so, you must store the rock name in a description field of the polygons that mark the area you are blasting. For this method to work, you must define each rock type in Blast design defaults, and enter each rock name in this Rock Name cell.
Rock Description	A textual description of the rock name. Rock Description is useful when you want to describe the rock type in more detail than is provided in the Rock Name field.
SG	The density of the rock. This value is used by the drill and blast reports which output the volume and mass of material that is blasted.
Hardness	This field is included for possible future functionality but it currently has no effect.
Joint Spacing	This field is included for possible future functionality but it currently has no effect.
Powder Factor	The weight of explosive, per volume of rock, that you expect you will need to blast the rock. This setting currently has no effect but you can record it here as the powder factor that you have determined you need through experience. Note: The powder factor reported by the drill and blast reports, is a calculated number. It does not use this setting.
Sub Drill	The optimal length of sub drill for the rock classification. This setting is used when you create a blast pattern and modify burden and spacing by polygon.
Burden	The burden for the rock classification. This setting is used when you create a blast pattern and modify burden and spacing by polygon.
Spacing	The spacing value for the rock classification. This setting is used when you create a blast pattern and modify burden and spacing by polygon.
Blast cone angle	The angle of the blast cone created by each blast. The Blast cone angle setting is used for all blast holes by default. The blast cone boundary (that you create when you run BLAST TRUE BOUNDARY) is created around all the blast cones. Therefore a smaller Blast cone angle causes a slightly contracted blast cone boundary, and a larger Blast cone angle causes a slightly expanded blast cone boundary.
Drilling cost per unit length	This field is used to calculate the total drilling costs in the blast summary report.

Fields on the Blast design defaults form, Firing Defaults tab

Field	Description
Firing template name	The name of each firing template that you can use to generate a firing sequence.
Firing pattern	The pattern of each firing template: V, Diagonal, or Centre lift.
No. of rows	When No. of rows is 1, Surface delay applies between each row. When No. of rows is greater than 1, this is the number of rows in each set of rows, and Surface delay applies between each set of rows.
Surface delay	The delay that is set on the surface rather than on the detonator. Surface delay applies between each row, or each set of rows (when No. of rows is greater than 1).

Output

There is no visible output. The settings are used in the other drill and blast functions, for example when creating blast patterns.