Recently, good news came from the construction site of the Pangang project: the ATM-1000L cutting-slot Raise borer Machine, independently developed by Hunan Yier Mining Technology Co.，Ltd., has successfully completed the tunneling of nine vertical raises since its smooth arrival, commissioning, and operation on May 26, 2025. With its outstanding performance and the construction team’s professional expertise, a total of 200 meters of advance has been achieved, demonstrating an ultra-low deviation rate of only 0.1% and highly efficient and stable construction. This has laid a solid foundation for Pangang’s blasting operations and highlighted the robust strength of mechanized mining equipment.

Pangang’s lithology is hard granite, which places stringent demands on the Raise borer Machine’s rock-breaking capability, stability, and precision. Focusing on the project’s core requirements, the construction team deployed the ATM-1000L Raise borer Machine to carry out fully mechanized operations. All nine raise shafts excavated were designed with a 90° vertical orientation, with each shaft’s depth precisely controlled between 23 and 25 meters, perfectly aligning with the construction standards for free faces in medium-to-deep hole blasting.

Leveraging the equipment’s intelligent control system and high-efficiency rock-breaking mechanism, the project achieves an average construction rate of 1–1.5 hours per meter, demonstrating clear advantages over conventional methods in hard-rock strata and significantly reducing the overall construction schedule.

During construction, complex geological conditions and the site environment pose multiple challenges.

1. Space Constraints: Cleverly Solving the Operational Challenges of Narrow Alleys

The underground roadway space is extremely confined, with the chamber width limited to just 4.2 meters, which severely restricts equipment operation and relocation. To proactively mitigate risks, our company dispatched dedicated after-sales technicians prior to equipment arrival to provide end-to-end guidance on the chamber foundation layout, thereby optimizing the operational workspace from the very outset. During the commissioning of the first shaft operation, after-sales engineer Guo Yi was stationed on-site throughout the entire process, leading the team in lowering the equipment into the shaft, performing installation and commissioning, and conducting trial runs. He also provided concurrent operational guidance and maintenance training, ensuring the smooth startup and reliable operation of the equipment. This end-to-end on-site service covered a shaft drilling depth exceeding 200 meters and successfully trained two skilled operators who are now capable of independently performing equipment operation, maintenance, and routine upkeep, thereby laying a solid talent foundation for future operations.

2. Complex Geology: Precision Steering Overcomes the Bottleneck of Unstable Surrounding Rock

Hidden interlayers, faults, and fractured zones within the granite strata result in extremely poor surrounding-rock stability, posing a significant challenge to maintaining drilling verticality; even slight deviations can create safety hazards. To address this core challenge, our engineer Guo Yi, in close collaboration with the mine’s technical personnel, conducted multiple precise re-measurements of borehole verticality, dynamically adjusted the drilling operation mode and advance rate, and fully leveraged the ATM-1000L rig’s built-in hole-finding fine-tuning mechanism and multi-orientation adjustment capabilities to continuously monitor and precisely compensate for drilling deviations. As a result, the overall deviation rate was tightly controlled at 0.1%, reaching an industry-leading level and effectively mitigating the risk of surrounding rock collapse.

3. Excessive hole spacing: Optimization measures reduce secondary operation costs

The extremely close spacing of only 550 mm between blast holes极易 leads to hole-wall breakdown, while the blasting performance in certain areas is suboptimal, necessitating secondary drilling to supplement the initial blasts. This further increases construction costs and places additional pressure on the project schedule. To overcome this challenge, the project team precisely calculated the spacing between equipment and boreholes, the verticality of drilling, and the probability of deviation; scientifically planned the placement of equipment; and, in light of the characteristics of soft-rock strata, tailored drilling parameters to ensure borehole wall integrity and surrounding rock stability, thereby effectively mitigating the risk of inter-borehole breakthrough. In response to the issue of blast-induced re-drilling, the team simultaneously optimized blasting parameters and borehole layout, fundamentally reducing the frequency of secondary operations and maximizing construction efficiency and quality.

The successful application of the ATM-1000L Raise borer Machine in the Pangang project not only verifies the equipment’s adaptability and reliability in complex, hard strata, but also demonstrates Yier Technology’s deep technical expertise in mechanized mining construction. As a highly efficient piece of equipment featuring a low-profile design and wireless remote control operation, the ATM-1000L Raise borer Machine, with its flexible mobility and intelligent functions, is perfectly suited to the complex underground chamber environment, reducing manual labor intensity while enhancing construction safety. Going forward, Yier Technology will take this project as an opportunity to continuously optimize mining construction equipment and technical solutions, deepen cooperation with core customers such as Pangang Group, and contribute to the mechanization and intelligent upgrading of the mining industry with higher-quality products and services, thereby supporting the efficient and green development of mineral resources.