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By Douglas Bartley

As the economy continues to slowly recover, our industry continues to finds ways to increase productivity while being forced to cut costs. The drilling and blasting process is the starting point of any aggregate or mining process. Many people refer to it as the “Primary Crusher” as it will always be more efficient to crush rock with explosives energy than it will be mechanical energy. It is the more efficient use of this energy that is addressed in this paper.

Jan 1, 2012

By George W. MacDonald

ALFRED NOBEL was born at Stockholm on October 21st. 1833, and died on December 10th, 1896. Although Sobrero’s discovery of nitroglycerin dated back to 1847, this explosive was manufactured on a commercial scale for the first time in 1862, by Nobel at a factory which he erected at Heleneborg, near Stockholm. These works were entirely wrecked by an explosion in 1864. In 1865, he erected works, which are still in existence, at Winterviken, near Stockholm. In 1864 Nobel introduced modifications in the manufacture of nitroglycerin which were the subject of a patent (see footnote No. 1), and at the same time, claimed a process for the detonation of nitroglycerin. Nobel states that, up to that time, the method used for the manufacture of nitroglycerin consisted in pouring glycerin, drop by drop, into a mixture of sulphuric acid and nitric acid contained in a refrigerating mixture. In order that the nitroglycerin should not be decomposed, the temperature was not allowed to rise above 0° C.

Jan 1, 2012

By Benjamin Cebrian

Traditional dilution control systems range from computer modeling, use of physical markers on the field as polypipes to a technology that marks some control points where displacement is measured. The latter includes walking over a muckpile which is prohibited by some mining companies as a safety measure. The new technology presented in this paper is a patented system that is installed on board excavators (backhoe or front shovel types). Several control points are set along ore/waste contacts and their position is uploaded on the corresponding shovel. The operator proceeds on mucking until he is alerted when reaching any of the several control points previously located in the blast patterns and that have moved with the muckpile. A case study is presented at a high grade copper mine, were unique 3D shapes are showing as a result of using an on-board excavator dilution control system. Both ore-loss or dilution cost of opportunities are analyzed.

By Christopher Cloete Uys, Luis Manuel Poinha Valentim

The purpose of this workshop is to describe and demonstrate the use of SPEEDWAVE, a high speed data recorder, its VOD enhancements, and the software which binds the system together. The system was designed by TLC Sohware, SOUTH AFRICA. TLC is a company spedalising in the solution of engineering problems, using computertechnology as a base. TLC was founded in 1987, and has since been involved in many different.measurement, control, simulation and modelling projects. Wth respect to the blasting industry, TLC has, in conjunction with AECI South Africa/ICI, developed a tunnel mining design aid, a ring blasting design aid, a multkhannel seismograph and a laser surveying program. In 1989, TLC designed and built the BA800. a microcomputer-based high speed recorder. These recorders are still in use and are producing valuable results. Based on improved technology and with the field experience of the BA800, TLC has designed and developed the data recorder SPEEDWWE.

Jan 1, 1995

By Joseph A. Meyers, Michael D. Stokes

This paper will focus on the use of Deflagrating Cartridges for tunnel excavation in Midtown Manhattan at Grand Central and 42nd Street Station, where the excavation has challenges due to the proximity of existing underground infrastructure and a contract blasting restriction. Skanska and FDNY’s collaborative teamwork successfully used deflagrating cartridges and gathered vibration data to properly predict ground vibrations on nearby infrastructure. In cities like Manhattan, conventional blasting excavation methods can be constrained or restricted entirely by the risk of damage to nearby structures, utilities, and disruption to everyday life on the streets. The introduction of Deflagrating Cartridges to the project offered a promising solution to mechanical excavation being used by providing controlled, precise, and deflagrating rock breaking capabilities that minimized disturbance to the above items. This technology minimizes the risk of vibration damage to preexisting infrastructure due to its reduced velocity of deflagration, making it useful for the location of our project. The team's approach involved numerous test shots to help determine the appropriate loading and timing sequence, as well as to collect data to properly be able to predict vibration on the adjacent structures. The successful application of deflagrating cartridges in the Grand Central area demonstrates their usefulness in logistically challenging underground excavation projects in urban cities. Through careful coordination and innovative use of this technology, the team was able to navigate the complexities of working near existing infrastructure while maintaining high levels of safety and productivity. Overall, our paper will speak to the importance of new technologies like deflagrating cartridges for usage in urban environments while minimizing disruption to the world above and below, the technology of these products, and the outcomes of our vibration data collection. By embracing these advancements, construction teams, owners, and other agencies can effectively address the unique challenges posed by projects in densely populated areas, while maintaining safety and productivity.

Jan 21, 2025

By Javier Illanes Pizarro, Gustavo Huerta Valer, Jorge Cárdenas Miranda

Bench stability is the basis of sustainability in an open pit mining operation. Taking care of the pit walls while maintaining fragmentation results can prove a challenge. In this study, technical proposals have been developed for extra hard rock mass (UCS>175MPa) with presence of unfavorable structural planes in high copper grade zones. The base case shows low compliance of fragmentation results and a significant loss in berm width, with over size boulders causing low primary crushing rates. Paradigms in current drill and blast design were overcome to improve fragmentation results and achieve objectives.

Feb 6, 2023

By Peter Moser, G. Reihholf

Holcim, one of the world's leading suppliers of cement, aggregates and concrete, has set up a few years ago a working group “Quarry” in order to optimize the performance of its central European quarry operations in terms of work safety, environmental standards and economic performance. One of the activities of this working group "Quarry" addresses the subject of blast fragmentation in the quarries. A benchmark study of the blast work in all quarries has shown substantial differences for the various operations in terms of drill& blast costs. Especially big differences were found with respect to the drilling patterns as a function of the borehole diameters and with respect to the utilization of the borehole volume for charging the explosives.

Jan 1, 2006

By Paul Worsey, Gillian Worsey

The explosives industry is about to reach a critical turning point in human resources. The average age of employees of the largest US explosives company is over 50 and an estimated 5,000 engineers are due to retire from the mining industry over the next decade, with less than 200 mining graduates per year nationally. Not just in the USA, this is a worldwide problem. In Canada the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MIHRC), reported that older mining engineers are retiring early – at the age of 59.5 on average. It predicts that mining companies will need to hire 370 mining engineers by 2016 and 665 by 2021. The Minerals Council of Australia has predicted the need for an additional 86,000 mining professionals and skilled mine workers by 2020, and the Indian mining industry is also facing a shortage of between 2,500 to 3,000 engineers per year.

Jan 1, 2014

By Patricio Santis, Jacopo Seccatore

Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) is a prominent activity in the extractive industry: considering only gold, it produces about 20% of world market supply. Despite this fact, ASM is generally associated with negative aspects of its environmental impact, and operational research is generally neglected. This paper emphasizes the peculiarity of the drilling and blasting systems of small underground mines in selected South American Countries. Such Countries, while having large mineral deposits and well recognized large-scale mining activities, at the same time still present on their territory ASM activities that are archaic, highly inefficient and dangerous for the safety of its operators. This paper documents drilling and blasting activities from gold mining in Ecuador and Chile. First, are described the outdated and often non-rational techniques employed by miners, to provide a general framework of the current methods. Then, it is shown what can be improved and how the current methods can be modified. Finally, are shown some field applications and the comparisons of the results obtained. One case shows how blast pull efficiency can be increased of from 82% to 98% by changing non-rational applications of explosive products. Another case shows how, by rationalizing blast designs, drilling and blasting costs can be reduced by 9% per month, the advance by blasting increased by 29% and the blasting efficiency increased from 70% to 90%. Finally, it is concluded that examples of application show how operational improvements are easily applicable on the field, relying only on tools and resources of artisanal mining, but combining solid engineering bases with confidence-gain and respect for the experience of the miners.

By VIVEK KUMAR HIMANSHU, Murari Prasad Roy, Kaushik Dey, Rakesh Kumar Singh, Ashish Kumar Vishwakarma

Sublevel stoping is commonly adopted method in underground hard rock mining. Proper planning and its execution is the key requirement for stope extraction using this method. The stope extraction has been a challenging task since decades. The major reason being the unavailability of free faces as compared to open cast bench blasting. The geological and geotechnical parameters changes gradually even within the stope itself. So the blast design parameters should be planned according to the scenario of upcoming ring. Blast design parameters like burden, toe spacing, inclination of blast holes, diameter of blast holes, charge density of explosive etc plays an immense role in rock damage. For the proper breakage of rock, the movement of burden is prime objective. To study this, explicit dynamic based modeller of M/s Ansys was used. The burden values were varied from 20-65 times diameter to assess optimum burden value during the study. The models were simulated for the rock having 35 MPa uniaxial compressive strength and 102 mm blast hole diameter. Altogether three holes were blasted having hole depth 14-14.5m. The blast design parameters and respective blast induced ground vibration has been measured at the experimental site. Core sample of the rock of experimental site has been used for the evaluation of geotechnical parameters. These geotechnical parameters were inserted into the simulation model. The volume of rock excavated along free face has been calculated in each model. It has been found that the burden value can varies from 35-40 times blast hole diameter (3.6-4.1m) to achieve greater volume of rock along the free face for 102 mm blast hole diameter and rock of 35 MPa uniaxial compressive strength.

Feb 6, 2023

By Sri Sawmliana, P. Pal Roy

Blasting Gallery (BG) method was introduced in India for higher production and low cost of excavation to substitute conventional hand section and stowing methods for thick coal seam. The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL) adopted this method in the year 1989 and since then successfully operating at GDK-10, GDK-8 & VK-7 Incline mines in Andra Pradesh, a southern state of India. It is also successful at Chora 10 Pit Colliery of Eastern Coalfields Ltd. (ECL) in West Bengal whereas at East Katras Colliery of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. (BCCL) in Jharkhand State, the method has been partially successful due to some geological constraints of the area.

Jan 1, 2003

By David Ziegler

Rough sketches, field notes, an on-site conference or a phone call may no longer suffice to establish your blast plan at a job site. More and more, general contractors, site supervisors, owner re p resentatives, or the owners themselves want to know details about proposed drill and blast operations at their site, in advance. We are seeing more contracts that re q u i re a blasting plan to be submitted in writing. The purpose of this session is to discuss items that you might want to include and address in a written blast plan, and some ideas about how to present them. This is not intended to be a complete list of items that could be included in a blast plan. Contracts may list specific items that need to be addressed. Only a few of the more common elements will be covered here. The bro a der purpose of this discussion is to get you thinking, about what you might want to include in your own “standard ” blast plan.

Jan 1, 2004

By Gloria Contreras

The study aims to optimize the density of holes per tunnel section. The energy distribution, the one with the highest density, is used in the center of the diagram and is distributed homogeneously towards the contours with the lowest energies up to the contours to produce a perimeter control.

Feb 1, 2020

By Dennys Huaman, Carlos Rojas

Using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm to reparametrize the Kuz-Ram original model equation of the mean characteristic size and assess the errors of both models and their comparisson using different statistics measures like chi-squared or relative error with the usage of the Monte-Carlo algorithm.

Feb 1, 2020

By Steve Colburn

The new CRITERION Survey Systems utilize both theodolite mounted and hand held reflectorless distance meters. These are eye safe, easy-to-use, and specifically designed to endure the harsh environments characteristic to the mining, quarry and explosives industries. Survey data collected by the systems is digitally stored in a ruggedized data collector and then processed with a specialized, new Windows-based interactive software program, which can be run on any standard PC.

Jan 1, 1995

Drilling through unconsolidated material I need to drill blastholes through a mix of consolidated and unconsolidated material. This material is hung up in an underground ore pass. The total length of the holes would be approximately 200 feet. We have attempted to drill through the material with conventional ITH drilling, but were unsuccessful. Does anyone have a suggestion? I am more than willing to bring in a contractor to do the job, if they have solid experience with this type of problem.

Jan 1, 2011

By Nolan Eckroade, Nigel Pereira

Wireless electronic blasting systems are a new technology that enable truly wireless initiation through rock, air and water. This is achieved using low frequency magnetic induction waves to wirelessly send a firing command to groups of in-hole primers. Fully wireless initiation not only removes the limitations imposed by a wired connection to each primer in a blast, but also enables users to alter the paradigm of conventional mining techniques to advance operational productivity and reduce personnel exposure to high-risk activities. While initially deployed in underground applications, wireless electronic blasting is now being used in the open cut environment. To capture the early impacts in surface mining operations, case studies conducted at three surface mines evaluated blasts utilizing a wireless electronic blasting system against baseline blasts using conventional, wired initiation systems. The purpose of this paper is to outline the specific learnings associated with wireless electronic blasting in surface mining to date. The paper will include references to these specific case studies as well as benefits realized and applications for the future.

By D. Preece

The mining and oil industry employs techniques such as geologic mapping, core drilling and electromagnetic and potential field techniques to explore for new deposits. Since new discoveries of major near-surface ore bodies are becoming progressively rare and since traditional exploration methods are unable to resolve ore bodies deeper than about 500m, high-resolution seismic reflection techniques show great potential for exploration to much greater depths down to almost 3km.

Jan 1, 2011

By Gavin Yuill, Kameron Ray

"The impact on vibration model accuracy by input data that is inaccurate was previously unknown, butthought to introduce significant error. This paper explores the impact of accuracy of different GPSreceivers, bulk truck density fluctuations, and charge weight location convention on the accuracy of the final vibration model output. GPS accuracy is compared between a professional Differential GPS, a “prosumer” GPS unit and a standard consumer GPS chip commonly found in cell phones. Bulk truck density fluctuations are compared from the density given by the operator and the actual cup density measured in the field. Charge weight locations explored are from the bottom of the blast hole, center of the powder column, and collar of the hole. The findings show that the weakest link in vibration model creation is actually low seismograph accuracy standards. Errors introduced from such are generally greater than those introduced from other sources."

Jan 1, 2017

By A Brodbeck, AT Spathis

Australian regulatory control of ground vibration and airblast arising from mining, quarrying and civil construction operations is spread across a number of federal, state and local authorities and across a number of departments with various jurisdictions. The Australian Standard AS 2187.2 contains an informative appendix on damage-related criteria and it is the primary reference for the regulators. The complete standard and the informative appendix is currently undergoing major revision with a focus for the latter on implementing frequency-dependent criteria for ground vibration. Certain directions for change have been raised for consideration by the standing committee, ranging from fundamental issues of measurement and interpretation and others that overlap human comfort criteria. It is anticipated that some of the suggestions will eventually make their way into future standards after an adequate period of consultation and consideration by both the Australian public and others involved in the associated industries.

Jan 1, 2005