UAE drill and blast specialist contractor Empire Rock Engineering has taken delivery of the region’s first Sandvik DI500 (formerly Titon 500) and Sandvik DTH hammers and bits to offer a new drilling concept for quarry owners.

“The Sandvik combination provides deeper and larger diameter bench holes to achieve increased blast performance and accuracy with constant penetration over a larger drilling area and with fewer holes,” says a spokesman for the drilling company.
The region’s quarries have traditionally relied on the top hammer rigs for drilling hole diameters of between 64-102 mm and a maximum 15 m depth. “Beyond this depth, the method tends to lose accuracy and the penetration rate falls,” says Empire’s Jeff Ridley.
The DTH technique is widely accepted throughout Europe and particularly by UK quarries drilling to depths of up to 30 m using a 152 mm drill bit.
“Requiring fewer holes and drilling deep holes with guaranteed accuracy offers increased productivity,” says Ridley

DI500
The Sandvik down-the-hole crawler drill rigs are equipped with powerful DTH hammers and have been designed for high-capacity rock drilling in quarries, open cast mines and construction sites.
Completely self contained with onboard compressors and efficient dust collectors the DI (Titon) range also features a ROPS/FOPS certified operator’s cab.
With a low centre of gravity and compact dimensions, the rigs are capable of traversing rough terrain easily and safely.
The unit is powered by a Caterpillar C11 Acert diesel engine rated at 385 hp at 2100 rpm.

Banking on reliability
Although only formed in 2006, Empire is gaining recognition for its quality operations and to-date has almost 20 drill and blast or drill only clients in quarries across Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah. Its philosophy of introducing European standards and techniques is endorsed by the delivery of the first DI 500; with a second rig, ordered through local dealer, Dynatrade, scheduled for delivery in April this year.
The company with a fleet of 13 rigs, including 10 competitive marques, turned to Sandvik for a CHA 700 (now designated DC700) at the beginning of last year. Within just six months a second CHA 700 had been delivered.
“We found that the Sandvik rigs and rock tools gave a better performance and increased reliability compared with the other units,” says Ridley, continuing,” The CHA 700’s are proving extremely versatile particularly for quarry development work.”
“They seem to get all the hard work both in terms of rock and different access areas – nevertheless they still achieve good performance with up to 200 to 300 m per shift.”
“We have four limestone quarries with the rest specialising in gabbro aggregates and rip-rap rock for breakwater applications. The Sandvik’s go where we need them.”
According to Ridley, the CHA 700’s are drilling 10 by 10 m deep holes using Sandvik 89 mm drill bits – having previously drilled 64 and 76 mm diameter holes.
The increased diameter meant the contractor was able to reduce the drilled meterage to give the same blast size with slight pattern adjustment.
Typically Empire is achieving up to 800 drilled metres before contracting out the bits for regrinding increasing service life by a further 30 per cent.

DI operation
Typically the DI500 is illustrated drilling 17 m deep holes at the Unimix quarry in Taween, close to Dibba, Fujairah. A limestone operation, the quarry experiences up to 40 per cent silica content particularly on the mountain ridges and Beccia zone. It is a well developed operation with three working areas, one comprising four benches and a second five.
The DI500 is generally drilling up to 50 holes in a 6 m by 6 m staggered configuration with three lines, maximising rock blast to 36 sq m/hole over an area of around 1800 sq m.
“The Sandvik DTH rig and hammer combination is able to achieve a constant penetration over the complete depth of each hole and still maintain accuracy,” Ridley confirms.
Since its delivery, the drill bits achieved more than 4500 m over a three month period before being changed. The drill pipes are still the original set.