Broomfield, Colorado (July 30, 2019)—Epiroc,a productivity partner for the mining and infrastructure industries, has donated a COP 1238K rock drillto the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI) at the Colorado School of Mines. The COP 1238K hydraulic rock drill for tunneling and drifting applications updates testing equipment at EMI, the largest independent rock drilling and excavation research facility in the world.

Located in Golden, Colorado, the Colorado School of Mines is known globally for its unique expertise in topics related to earth, energy and the environment. EMI was established in 1974 to enhance education and research in the field of excavation technology for mining and civil underground construction, and the Institute has become one of the world’s leading research facilities.

Over its 45 years of existence, EMI has developed a suite of physical property tests, cutter and cutterhead evaluation procedures for performance prediction, project costing, and design of mechanical rock excavation tools for all types of mechanical excavators in mining, civil underground construction, and microtunneling. The developed test procedures and performance/cost prediction models have been validated with extensive field data from excavation and drilling projects around the world.

The rock drill donation came about through collaboration between Epiroc Business Line Manager – Rock Drilling Tools, Shawn Cheney, and Director of the Earth Mechanics Institute, Jamal Rostami, Ph.D., PE. A member of the EMI industrial advisory board, Cheney facilitated the donation of the COP 1238K to replace EMI’s decades-old testing drill. The new test cell installation was completed in February 2019.

“Epiroc has tremendous appreciation for and confidence in the work that EMI does,” Cheney said. “We recently partnered with EMI on a project related to the cutting technology on our mobile miner. We’re honored to donate equipment that will help EMI continue to serve as a valuable resource for the mining and civil underground construction industries.”

“We greatly appreciate the generosity of Epiroc,” Rostami said. “The COP 1238K rock drill donation gives EMI the opportunity to perform full-scale testing using the latest in rock drilling technology. This test unit will drive research that contributes to more efficient and safer drilling operations in the industries we support.”

For more information, visit emi.mines.edu and epiroc.us.