Drill and blast in gypsum quarries: Optimization of technical, economic and safety aspects in Monte Tondo midmountain case study

Drilling and blasting operations are one of the common operations in openpit mining. Recently, mathematical rigorous patterns are attracting attention, and digitalization and optimization of mining operations are highly suggested. In this work, drilling and blasting operations are modeled and various optimization scenarios are simulated. The aim is to improve the blasting efficiency in quarrying through proper understanding of the fracture mechanisms and optimization of blasting alternatives. The analysis was developed over the Monte Tondo gypsum quarry, owned by Saint-Gobain Italia. The case study was modeled by the openpit blasting software O-Pitsurface.