Quarry Academy, the annual seminar co-hosted by Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology and Dyno Nobel, wrapped up its 13th installment in San Antonio.
A total of 128 employees from 47 companies across the aggregate industry attended the three-day event at the Omni La Mansion del Rio hotel, situated on the San Antonio River Walk.
The educational seminar included lectures, workshops, simulator experiences and a visit to Cemex‘s Balcones Quarry, the largest crushed stone producer in the United States, according to the United States Geological Survey, at 10-12 million tpy.
Topics covered in lectures included quarry planning and metrics; chemical crushing; fragmentation management; the fundamentals of vibration control; load and haul cost improvement; safety behaviors; optimizing plant performance; screening and sizing; analytics and business intelligence; and the principles of mechanical crushing, among others.
As for the more intimate workshop sessions, the topics covered included drilling in depth; blasting 101; blasting in depth; crushing and screening best practices; putting the plant together; operator efficiency; tools and methods for process improvement; and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) applications for the quarry industry.
The visit to Balcones Quarry on the third and final day of the event included a tour of the 2,400-acre operation.
