Mining or in situ disintegration of hard material – Tunnel recovery of fluid material
Patent
1975-08-11
1977-08-23
Novosad, Stephen J.
Mining or in situ disintegration of hard material
Tunnel recovery of fluid material
102 23, 166259, 299 13, E21B 4324, E21B 4326, F21C 4110
Patent
active
040435954
ABSTRACT:
An in situ oil shale retort is formed in a subterranean oil shale deposit by excavating a columnar void having a vertically extending free face, drilling blasting holes adjacent to the columnar void and parallel to the free face, loading the blasting holes with explosive, and detonating the explosive in a single round to expand the shale adjacent to the columnar void toward the free face in layers severed in a sequence progressing away from the free face and to fill with fragmented oil shale the columnar void and the space in the in situ retort originally occupied by the expanded shale prior to the expansion. A room having a horizontal floor plan that coincides approximately, with the horizontal cross section of the retort to be formed is excavated so as to intersect the columnar void. The blasting holes are drilled and loaded with explosive from the room. The room can lie above the columnar void, below the columnar void, or intermediate the ends of the columnar void. In one embodiment, the columnar void is cylindrical and the blasting holes are arranged in concentric rings around the columnar void. In another embodiment, the columnar void is a slot having one or more large parallel, planar vertical free faces, toward which the oil shale in the retort under construction can be explosively expanded. The blasting holes are arranged in planes parallel to these faces. The resulting retort generally has a cross section coinciding with the placement of the blasting holes and a height determined for the greater part by the vertical height of the columnar void. To form a retort having a large cross-sectional area, a plurality of columnar voids can be excavated and the shale in the retort expanded toward the respective columnar voids to form a continuous fragmented permeable mass of oil shale.
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E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., Blasters ' Handbook; (1969), 15th edition; pp. 93-96, and 258-272.
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Novosad Stephen J.
Occidental Oil Shale Inc.
Suchfield George A.
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