Nearly 40 attendees and more than a dozen presenters gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, for the third Technical Demonstration Day. The event highlighted progress in technological advances associated with the aggregate, mining and construction industries. Representatives from the nation’s top aggregate producers joined presenters from Sauls Seismic and Nomis Seismographs; a remote monitoring provider and seismograph manufacturer, respectively; as well as Tread Corp., Renishaw, Thunderbird Mining Systems, Nxburst, Atlas Copco, Respec and Firmatek.
Sauls Seismic featured its NOW Access website and remote monitoring systems while Nomis Seismographs demonstrated its new Mini-Supergraph II.
“It is so valuable to have a day to gather great people from across the industry to discuss emerging technologies,” says Lauren Elmore of Firmatek. “We really enjoyed the chance to network with others in the industry, discuss our technology and learn from others.”
Paul Downing of Nobel Insurance says, “[The shared information] can be used to make the blaster’s job safer by knowing more about the blast site and the exposures. I was able to interact and network with several attendees and presenters to discuss how their products and services may be useful to a drilling and blasting firm’s risk-management and record-keeping processes.”
The group traveled to Vulcan Materials’ nearby Dolcito Quarry. There, the presentations continued with a live demonstration of a new drill from Atlas Copco, boulder busting with Nxburst cartridges by Birmingham Powder, and Thunderbird’s onboard drill monitoring system.
“Tech Demo Day is always a great chance to get a look at what’s new in the area of blasting technology and how it could be applied to our business to increase safety, sustainability and performance,” says Mike Allen of Martin Marietta.
“This year provided an excellent look into both emerging technologies, as well as technologies that have begun transitioning from the mining industry to the quarrying industry.”
Information for this article courtesy of Sauls Seismic.
