Hard Granite Rock Removal for Oman Highway by Neoferma

ECOBUST Al Fatah Highway, Oman - Removal of Hard Granite Rock
ECOBUST enables demolition without jackhammering or explosives.

Al Fatah Highway, Oman - a stretch of highway running through very hard rock in the mountains of central Oman - needs to pass close to a concrete water tank structure. The use of explosives around that area is not permitted to prevent damages to the concrete water tank.

The contractor was using a chisel machine, but the chisels were blunt within a day and had to be retooled constantly. The progress using chisels was very slow and it would take too long to finish the job.

ECOBUST Solution

For the stretch of the highway close to the tank, ECOBUST was considered because:

• It could remove the rock without blast or vibration.
• Easy to install.
• Size of the break-off boulders could be determined by adjusting the drilling pattern of the holes.

ECOBUST Methodology

To test the efficacy of and to determine the optimal spacing between the holes, a demo trial was set up. In the areas where explosives were used, the explosives were inserted in holes with a diameter of 75 mm. There was a 75mm drill rig available on site. For this project, the large-hole diameter ECOBUST was chosen, so the drill rig available could be used to drill the cracking holes.

Holes were positioned 30cm and 50cm apart, and drilled about 1.5 metres deep. ECOBUST was mixed (15kg bag of ECOBUST with 1.5 litres of clean water) and poured into the holes.

The rock mass was cracked within about 36 hours.