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  5. Blast Vibration Monitoring for a Queensland Coal Operation

Blast Vibration Monitoring for a Queensland Coal Operation

Equipment

8 blast vibration monitors

Deployed

December 2022, expanded since

Regulatory

Environmental authority conditions, AS 2187.2-2006 Appendix J

Outcome

Continuous sampling at 1,000 times per second

The operation

Blast monitoring on a Queensland coal operation is a continuous obligation, not a periodic one. Conditions set in the site’s environmental authority define the airblast overpressure and ground vibration limits that apply, and every blast must be recorded and retained for at least five years.

A Queensland coal operation faced that obligation alongside a longer-term risk. As the pit advances, blasting will eventually occur within roughly 200 m of critical electricity transmission infrastructure at its closest point.

Rather than wait, the operator worked with Novecom to establish continuous blast vibration monitoring in December 2022, years ahead of the pit reaching the transmission corridor. Eight monitors have recorded ground vibration and air overpressure across the site since.

The challenge, capturing a defensible record across an advancing pit

Three conditions shaped the design of the monitoring program.

1
The first was completeness. A compliance record built from sampled or threshold triggered events leaves gaps, and gaps are difficult to explain years later when the record is examined rather than filed. Every blast needed to be captured in full.
2
The second was the mine’s own infrastructure. Monitoring positions across an active coal operation sit well away from convenient network coverage. Data had to travel from remote positions, through a combination of carrier networks and the mine’s internal IT and OT systems, without interruption and without creating a security exposure.
3
The third was time. The transmission infrastructure risk was years away, but the value of a monitoring record comes from its length. A record started at the point of highest scrutiny has no history behind it. The program had to be built to run continuously and to expand as the pit progressed.

How a phased deployment established a continuous blast record

The program was structured across four phases and has remained in operation since the first units were installed.

Phase 1

Assessed monitoring requirements against the site’s environmental authority conditions and the measurement approach set out in AS 2187.2-2006 Appendix J, and determined monitor positioning relative to the pit, the site boundary and the transmission corridor.

Phase 2

Deployed blast vibration monitors across the operation from December 2022. Each unit records ground vibration through a triple axis geophone and air overpressure through an omnidirectional microphone, sampling continuously at 1,000 times per second.

Phase 3

Integrated the monitors with the mine’s communications environment. Novecom designed a hybrid backhaul combining carrier networks with the mine’s internal IT and OT systems. Acubis, the remote communications specialists within Emergent Group, worked alongside Novecom on the network integration and the off-grid power requirements at each monitoring position.

Phase 4

Moved the program into ongoing operation. Novecom continues to provide periodic servicing, calibration, troubleshooting, and data management and reporting support. Further monitors and positioning changes have been added since the initial deployment as mining progressed to the northeast.

Outcomes

✓
The monitoring network has operated continuously since December 2022. Across that period, vibration and overpressure results have been captured without anyone required to travel to position equipment before a blast or returning to retrieve data afterwards.
✓
The monitors sample continuously at 1,000 times per second rather than waiting for a trigger threshold to be crossed. Nothing depends on a threshold being set correctly, and nothing falls below one. For blast engineers assessing whether a blast performed as designed, the record covers the full event and the conditions either side of it.
✓
The program has expanded with the operation. Additional monitors and positioning changes were introduced as mining progressed to the northeast, so the monitoring footprint has tracked the pit rather than lagging behind it.
✓
By the time blasting reaches the transmission corridor, the operation will hold several years of continuous, maintained monitoring history against which any question about a single blast can be answered.

What does continuous blast vibration monitoring actually give an operator?

For a blast engineer asking the question: Did this blast comply? Answering it is often a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Monitors positioned ahead of the blast, someone travelling to place them, data retrieved afterwards, results transcribed into the site’s compliance archive. That cycle can repeat for every blast, for as long as the operation continues blasting.

Permanently installed monitoring can effectively remove the cycle rather than shortening it. The monitors are already in position and already sampling, so no one mobilises to set up before a shot or returns to collect data after one. Measured results can move from the monitor to the reporting system without a manual step in between.

Two things follow from that. The first is consistency. A blast brought forward, added late or moved to a different part of the pit is captured the same way as a planned one, because nothing had to be positioned in advance for it. The second is durability of the record. Queensland requires blast records to be kept for at least five years. A record assembled by hand depends on the person who assembled it. A record captured automatically does not.

What the monitors provide is the measured part of that record: the airblast overpressure, the peak particle velocity, and the date and time of each recording. Those measured fields can often be the ones most exposed to transcription error, and the ones a regulator is most likely to test.

Reach out to the team for blast vibration monitoring

Novecom designs, manufactures and maintains blast vibration monitoring equipment in Newcastle, and supports mine sites across the east coast.

Get in touch to discuss blast vibration monitoring for your operation.

mail@novecom.com.au
+61 2 4924 5460

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