Could water jets be used to cut tunnels?

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Guest412

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Jun 12, 2011
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Yeah they are not cheap. Used for a full setup is 60-100k. I still think it would be better and cheaper in the long run, plus people wouldn't hear you blasting. I still got some learning to do but I may try and rent a portable concrete demo type setup that is basically and over sized pressure washer and see how effective it is. I was just curious if anyone had any experience with doing it already. takes a hell of alot of power to run a 40,000 psi pump.
 

Water I have thats the easy part. I like the low noise factor of the water jet. Pump would be pretty loud. and would take 300+ hp to run it. Fuel cost would add up quick. I wanted the ability to cut clean shaped tunnels because I was toying with the idea of building a house in solid granite. We had wood deck type floors in the old mine tunnel next to the house we have now with a stove and concrete formed door frame. stayed nice a warm in there in the winter , cool mid 50's in the summer. Fire proof and would last litterally forever. Run all your piping and wires just like on a warship , on the bulkheads. Hell never know could hit a vein in there.
 

If done right there is no noise in blasting....Lord help you if you were caught by the EPA,using your water deal without the right permits...run off equipt.Fines start at $100,000,and can be per gallon
 

Kuger, you just crushed my dreams. haha. I hadn't even gone that far in the thought process yet but you are very correct. EPA will rape you given the opportunity. Guess ill do it with rock drills and a mirco-blaster.
 

downdeep said:
Kuger, you just crushed my dreams. haha. I hadn't even gone that far in the thought process yet but you are very correct. EPA will rape you given the opportunity. Guess ill do it with rock drills and a mirco-blaster.
Click to expand...

I didnt mean to do that!LOL!!I like the idea,its just getting around all the BS we have crammed down our throats!!! :thumbsup:
 

The only remote possibility that water jets could have any application in underground mining would be to use the jet to bore the powder holes instead of the std. Gardner Denver rock drill or drill platform. Not practical, unless the rock is loose talc. For rock to break, it must have a place to break into, otherwise it cannot break. Ask any miner about the that purpose breaker holes or bore holes serve, that are at the center of the face to be shot/blasted.

A properly loaded face will not be loud, but quiet enough that you can still hear the caps fire off in a sequentially time shot. Remember, you only need to break or shatter the rock, not pulverize it.

Have a great dream abut hydro-mining.
 

It was more of a curiosity than anything. I just wanted a way to make clean shaped tunnels. Gold would be a by-product if any was present . I was toying with building a house in solid rock. Thermally efficient, last about forever. and wouldn't taint the landscape. thanks for the info gents!
 

Hey Downdeep:

Most of the active mines I've been in are wet enough to keep the pumps busy from either ground seepage or drill bit water, without adding more water. I suppose you could use water jets to cut a face, but I think that would only be the start of your problems. In addition to quickly driving a tunnel, drilling and blasting produces manageable size material. If you're cutting out block size rock with a water jet, it doesn't take a big chunk of rock to weigh several tons. How do you safely and efficiently move that size of rock? Also, unless you cut wedge shape sections, how do you break it off the back?

Next problem, if you think you have gold ore in your tunnel, what size of crushing equipment would you need to handle block size feedstock? Even if you could afford the large size crushing equipment, it's still probably more efficient to blast.

Regarding smooth tunnel walls; you could use a tunnel boring machine, but it would probably be cheaper to buy a whole subdivision of houses than the cost of one of those big bad boys. I have seen some old underground mines converted to living spaces by using grouting or a form of gunite to smooth out the walls. Underground housing makes a lot of sense in stable rock (no AC bills in the summer), but because of the high costs involved to make them liveable, I don't see it as a future trend anytime soon.

But, don't let my doubts slow you down. If you can come up with a new and better way of doing things, I'm always interested.

Good luck,

John
 

The rock is solid granite. We lived in the tunnel next to the house we have now as a kid. wood floors, stove, it was cozy. it had no supports built into it. Crushing equipment would be a chore to get near where I want this done. I was just looking at alternatives to blasting as being in california Id imagine getting blasting material would be pretty difficult to say the least. Go old school and use fire and water and a hammer. haha
 

Hey Downdeep:

I read somewhere that one of the Roman requirements of being a fire and water miner, was to be a slave, and that type of mining was real tuff on a healthy body. Where I'm working in old Mexico, they do very little single jacking anymore, as long as they can drag an air compressor and a chipping hammer close to the adit. I've seen them carve on a hardrock face like Michelangelo sculpting a statue. It's slow and noisy work, but they stay after it steadily.

We've been slowly introducing them to using a jack leg (they already have the compressor), and the proper sequence of hole drilling. All explosives buying is under military control there (which is probably still less hassle then the Kali-Nutz), but because of their normal eagerness to blow something up, they are generally very helpful.

From what I've seen, a chipping hammer is a little bit faster than single or even double jacking, and they do make electrical units if you happen to have a handy genset for lights. But, if you decide on fire and water, please,,, take photos so the rest of us can enjoy your misery... :whip2:

Good luck,

John
 

Downdeep,

I seen programs on the evil eye showing blasters that could cut reasonably smooth surfaces in rock tunnels. Ifn' I remember rightly Cheyenne mountain was one. A blaster that knew his stuff could cut a hole any size or shape you wanted and leave the walls pretty smooth to boot.

Gramps
 

I've done the water fire thing on a free standing bolder before, underground though forget it. I guess chipping hammer and rock drill , i could get it done over a long time. Yeah im a glutin for punishment but not that much haha. Thanks gents , misery loves company.
 

I've run water jets before and they are slow as all get out. Couple that with the fact that the water has no place to go but back out the cut right at you, and you're sure to have a friggin mess on your hands.

They are low volume, extremely high pressure systems and the water really doesn't do any cutting. The cutting comes from abrasive (usually garnet) introduced to the stream just before it hits the surface to cut.

As I recall, we ran plastics like UHMW 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick at about 40-50 inches per minute. Gauge steel was 10 IPM or less. When talking about 1/2 inch plate and up, it was usually less than an inch per minute.

We'd run the material on a bed suspended above a tank full of water so the jet would have somewhere to dissipate. Cutting solid rock wouldn't have that convenience, so it'd all come right back out of the cut back at you. Piercing through was the messiest. We put a plunger rubber over the head, with the lower edge right above the material to keep the back spray down. Still pretty messy.

Great applications though, for stuff that can't be cut with a laser or high-def plasma.
 

ncclaymaker said:
The only remote possibility that water jets could have any application in underground mining would be to use the jet to bore the powder holes instead of the std. Gardner Denver rock drill or drill platform. Not practical, unless the rock is loose talc. For rock to break, it must have a place to break into, otherwise it cannot break. Ask any miner about the that purpose breaker holes or bore holes serve, that are at the center of the face to be shot/blasted.

A properly loaded face will not be loud, but quiet enough that you can still hear the caps fire off in a sequentially time shot. Remember, you only need to break or shatter the rock, not pulverize it.

Have a great dream abut hydro-mining.
Click to expand...

If we use multiple high pressure water jets which can be programmed to inject water at different angles, it might be possible to cut and dislodge the rocks and dig tunnels with just with high pressure water. This may be feasible for large TBM projects and much cheaper than the current TBMs. What do you think?
 

Hello Vasuki, and welcome to Tnet! :hello:

This thread is a little old, but a good subject to breath life into again. I, too, had given some thought to ultra-high pressure water for cutting solid rock - probably a bit too much thought! I haven't had the opportunity to test any of my theories, but I think it would be possible to do this given the right equipment, which is nothing that is currently being produced. For one thing, in order to get any real depth of cut, the waterjet stream is going to have to be substantially larger than the very tiny sizes now offered. I think .250" might work ok, but .500" would be much better, and 1.000" better yet!! If it were possible to send that size of waterjet stream into solid rock at 80k to 100k PSI, I think maybe the water would have enough 'bite' to work without using an abrasive. Yet even if abrasive were used, what would be wrong in this instance of using plain, quartz sand? ...Other than the fact that you'd be going through literally tons of sand, then having to explain to the EPA how you're handling all that very, very fine sand that had been broken down into more of a flour sized particle. So probably a water-only system would be most feasible.

Now comes the hard part - how to power a system that can deliver 80k PSI or higher of water in a 1/4", 1/2" or even a 1" waterjet stream. Even at 1/4", the power required would be horribly high. The only "nice" think about this system would be that it would be very easy to filter the water over and over so that it could be reused countless times. When talking the amount of horsepower required to generate that size of waterjet stream, I think just the heat of the exhaust would be adequate enough to purify the water through a vapor distillation process in order to prevent unnecessary wear to the pumps due to grit or contamination.
 

I am no expert but.....It seems to me that the method would create a problem of muck removal especially if the tunnel was tilted slightly downward which would create a lake at the face of the tunnel. The slurry would probably need to be pumped and coarse material removal would involve some type of scoop mucking machine as in the usual case of tunnel building except for when using a continuous boring machine that conveys the cuttings to a shuttle car or an extendable conveyor to get rid of the waste.

Good luck.
 

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