Controlled

Blasting
 Blasting
 Blasting means explosion.

 Blasting is done to break the hard rock

 As the site may be in the vicinity of

human population and near structure ,
blasting in controlled way is preferred.
BLASTING
FOR
REDUCED ROCK DAMAGE
AND
CONTROLLING STABILITY
 DAMAGE TO
REMAINING ROCK
Damage Resulting From
Conventional Blasting
 Overbreak at
SIDES BACK BREAK UNDER
BREAK & BACK SHATTER
BLAST DAMAGES
The blast damage refer to any
deterioration of the strength of
the remaining rock/block due
to the presence of blast
induced cracks and extension
of pre-existing or newly
generated fractures.

MECHANISM OF BLAST DAMAGE

 Crushing Around Borehole
 Radial Fracturing
 Gas Pressure
 Internal Spalling
 Induced Strain
 Release of Load Fracturing
DAMAGE FORMS
 Separation due to
breakage
 Increased fracture
frequency
 Degradation in
discontinuity surfaces
 Changes in the
aperture of
discontinuity
 Development of new
cracks and their
bifurcation
 Adverse impacts to be controlled
 Fragmentation
 Over Break
 Back Break
 Ground vibration
 Fly rock
 Air Blast
 Fractures within remaining rock walls
 Noise
 Dilution/Waste of ore etc.
FACTORS AFFECTING
BLAST DAMAGES
 ROCK PROPERTIES  CHARGE PROPERTIES
 Dynamic breaking  Type of explosive, Charge
strength: increase in configuration
DBS reduce over  Strength of explosive as well as
break concentration & distribution of
 Structural explosive within hole
properties: joint  HOLE SHAPE
orientation, joint  Conventional hole
spacing  Notching of blast hole
 Rock Mass Rating  PROTECTIVE DEVICES
(RMR) higher RMR  Damages can be reduced by use
are less prone to of liner
rock damage  DECOUPLING OF CHARGE
 To diminish excessive peak
pressure
BLASTING TECHNIQUES FOR
DAMAGE REDUCTION
 Ensuring Adequate
Burden Relief

 Reducing Explosives
Energy Concentration

 Controlled Blasting
Techniques
 PARAMETERS IN
CONTROLLED BLASTING

 Precision In Drilling

 Explosives

 Interval Timing

 Rock Characteristics
 PRECISION IN DRILLING

 Hole deviation and

collaring error
 Spacing, burden
and their ratio
 Shape of opening
 Actual blast
geometry may
differ from design
 EXPLOSIVES
ANFO, Slurry / Emulsion, Special
Products for Controlling Damage.
Velocity of detonation
Decoupling ratio
Density of explosive
Charge concentration
per metre
Length of borehole
Shape of the charge
 INTERVAL TIMING
 Over break is reduced
if the burden is easily
 Number
Number of of
pushed forward
delays in
delays in
perimeter
perimeter  Gas confinement for
holes
holes less time
 Delay
Delay
scattering inin  Each charge should
scattering
detonators have progressive
detonators relief of burden
 Misfired
Misfired holes
holes during the blast
ROCK CHARACTERISTICS
Rock properties, structure and
groundwater normally dominant in wall
stability are not controllable.

• ROCK STRESS
• ROCK STRENGTH
• ROCK STRUCTURE
REDUCING ENERGY
CONCENTRATION

 Initiation Sequence
 Charge Distribution
 Hole Diameter
 Effective Sub Drilling
CHARGE DISTRIBUTION
 STEMMING

With 115 to 152 mm holes,

2.5 to 4.5 m stemming columns employed
With 76 to 102 mm stemming
Stemming can be reduced to 1.5 m-2.5 m
CONTROLLED BLASTING
TECHNIQUES
 Free Face
 Line Drilling
 Bottom Initiation
 Delay Detonators
 Pre-splitting
 Muffle Blasting
 Cushion Blasting
 Air Decking
 Smooth Blasting
 Controlled Fracture Growth
 Free Face
 The availability of Free vertical face for blasting is the most
important factor in any type of blasting. The availability of
free face has following advantages-
 1) Increase in productivity in term of length of drilling per
m3 and blasting material in terms of kg per m3.
 2) The flying of rock always takes place towards the
direction where there is lesser load i.e burden. Therefore
free face available gives the weaker plane for the
displacement of rock. Thus in case of vertical free face the
movement of rock is horizontal. Hence rock fly is avoided.
 3) Free face for 2nd and subsequent rows is obtained by
use of delay system in between successive rows. For open
cut short delay detonators are used .
 Line Drilling

Line drilling holes along the final excavation

 LINE DRILLING
 This system involves a single row of closely spaced
uncharged holes along the neat excavation line.
 This provides a plane of weakness to which primary blast can
break.
 It reflects some of shock waves generates by the blast thus
reducing shattering and stressing in the finished wall of the
host rock.
 Generally these holes are percussive hammer hole spaced 2
– 4 times the hole dia and drilled along the excavation line.
 Blast holes directly adjacent to the line drill holes(buffer
holes) are generally loaded lighter (about 50%) and are
closely spaced (50-75%)
 This technique gives maximum protection to the host rock to
preserve its original strength.
 Disadvantage: Cost of drilling, Alignment of holes
 Bottom Initiation
 Both Electric and non electric detonators ensures bottom
initiation, i.e. detonation takes place at the bottom of blast
hole.
 For bore blast(Hole dia-100mm) having depth 4m to 8m the
nonel shock tube is required to be used.
 When detonation takes place at the bottom, the rock
between the blast hole and free vertical face get displaced
horizontally. This also creates the space for the
displacement of balance rock and thus flying of rock can
completely avoided.
 The blasting with bottom initiation and free face is just like
cutting of cake except displacement starts from bottom
towards the ground surface.
 Delay detonators
* The vibrations are controlled by three methods

 1) Use of delay detonators:- the quantum of vibrations depend upon

the charge per delay i.e. the quantity of explosives detonated at a time.
To reduce charge per delay, short delay detonators/relays are used.
The connections between the every hole is done such that only one
hole is blasted at a time. Minimum delay of 8 milisecond is required in
each hole. The use of short delay ensures reduction in vibration. At the
same time the blasting energy of each hole is compounded for the
displacement of rock.
 2) Short Delays:- The delay should always be designed such that the
next hole is blasted before the cracks from the earlier hole are
propagated. Hence unnecessary long delay may result misfire by
propagation of cracks and escape of fumes.
 3) Air decking:-Leaving voids at bottom or in-between the blasting
material is called air decking. The vibrations are reduced by Air
decking.
 Air decking can be done by use of PVC pipe, bamboo etc.
 Short delay detonators
* The short delay detonators are available
with following delays,
 18 millisecond
 25 millisecond
 42 millisecond
* The short delay detonators are also
called surface connectors.
 Advantages of Short-Delay
Blasting

The advantages of Short-delay blast

over Instantaneous blast are :-
 Reduction of ground vibration.
 Reduction in air blast.
 Reduction in over break.
 Improved fragmentation.
 Better control of fly-rock.
BLAST HOLE LOADING SYSTEM
FOR PRESPLITTING

Example of presplitting with and without presplitting

Presplitting in a blast
Principle of Pre-splitting
Preslitting 1
presplitting2
 Muffling
 After the connection of blast holes the
area shall be covered by wire
mesh/conveyor belts and sand/earth bags.
Initially while creating free face in existing
ground this arrangement is must. Once the
vertical face is prepared, the fly of rock is
controlled by correct design of controlled
blasting in terms of charging, delay,
burden, spacing etc.
Muffle Blasting
CUSHION BLASTING
 Closely spaced
lightly loaded holes
at the perimeter.
 Trim (Cushion Blasting)
 Like line drilling trim or cushion blasting involves a single
row of holes along the specified final excavation line.
 This technique generally uses 2 – 4 inch dia holes.
 Holes are loaded with light charge, well distributed,
completely stemmed and fired after the main excavation is
removed.
 By firing the trim holes with minimum or no delay between
holes, the detonation tend to shear the rock web between
holes and give smooth wall with minimum over break
 It is better to put trim holes just before removing the final
berm.
 As compared to line drilling technique trim or cushion
blasting is simpler and economical as increased hole spacing
are used.
AIR DECKING
Longer stemming in front and at the back
Smooth (Contour or Perimeter) blasting
Charging for smooth (Contour and Perimeter) blasting
 CONTROLLED
FRACTURE GROWTH
 Drill Hole Liners
 Metal Tube
 Plastic Pipe
 Card Board Tube

NOTCHED HOLES
 BLASTHOLE LINERS

GI PIPE LINE PVC PIPE LINER

PLASTIC LINER

CARDBOARD LINER
CARDBOARD LINER
PAPER TUBE LINER
 BLAST DESIGN
AND IMPLEMENTATION

 Fragmentation Process
 Rock Characteristics
 Explosives
 Initiation
 Measurements Before Blasting And Design
Implementation
 Computer Aided Blast Design
 MEASUREMENTS
BEFORE BLASTING

 Actual Blast Geometry May

Differ From Design
 Boretrak Blast hole Logger
 Laser Profiler
 ROCKFACE LASER
PROFILER

• Laser ‘scans’ are made

• Operator points the laser at the face and
measure: distance, horizontal and vertical
angles
• Optimise design and drilling positions
• Process the data on site
 MEASUREMENTS
DURING BLASTING
Observation of the initiation sequence
Potential misfired blast holes
Effectiveness of stemming material and length
Face movement – degree and location
Sources of fly rock, air blast
Origin of oversize rock blocks
Explosion gas products (fume), Indicating poor
explosives performance-water contamination,
etc.
 MEASUREMENTS
AFTER BLASTING
 FRAGMENTATION
Size Distribution, Photographic Techniques, Wipfrag

 MUCK PILE DISPLACEMENT

Maximum Throw, Overall Displacement, Muck Pile Swell

 BLAST DAMAGE BEYOND THE BLAST LIMITS

Cautious Blasting

 DIGGING PRODUCTIVITY
Bucket Fill Factor, Overall Productivity, Time Lost In Handling
Oversize, Downtime For Cleanup
 BLASTING FOR
WALL STABILITY
i. Any reduction in explosive consumption will
lead to a reduction in damage to the rock.
ii. Semi-rigid explosives cartridges should be used
as decoupled charge. For example 55 mm
diameter cartridges in 89 mm blast holes would
be a suitably decoupled charge.
iii. Effective burden on perimeter holes should not
be greater than about 25 times the blast hole
diameter, preferably about 20 times.
iv. Limit the width of the blasts to no more than 1.5
times the bench height
v. The best spacing between back-row blast holes lie
between 25 and 40 times the blast hole diameter. In
multi-row shots, blast holes should be staggered.
vi. Drill angled rather than vertical blast holes at least
for the last 3 to 4 rows in front of the final wall.
Angled blast holes tend to cause less damage to
the crest behind the back row. Angle of 20-30 to
the vertical is recommended.
vii. For all blast holes except those in the back row,
the length of the stemming column is commonly
about 25 hole diameters. Because of the need to
prevent surface over break, it is necessary to
increase the stemming length in he back row.
viii. Subdrilling into the final crest or berm should be
minimized because cracks generated by explosion
gases will allow water into the berm, therefore
increasing the rate of breakdown due to weathering.
ix. The initiation sequence should be selected so that
there are minimum numbers of blast holes firing on
the same delay, and preferably hole by hole.
x. Adequate delay should be used to ensure good
movement towards free faces and the creation of
new free faces for following rows. Utilize long delay
intervals between rows of blastholes (around
20ms/m).
xi. Delays be used to control the maximum
instantaneous charge to ensure that rock breakage
does not occur in the rock mass, which is supposed
to remain intact.
xii. Choke blasting into excessive burden or broken
muck piles should be avoided.
xiii. The front row charge should be adequately
designed to move the front row burden.
xiv. The main charge and blast hole patterns should be
optimized to give the best possible fragmentation
and digging conditions for the minimum powder
factor.
xv. Back row holes should be drilled at an optimum
distance from the final digline to permit free digging
and yet minimize damage to the wall. Experience
can be used to adjust the back row positions and
charges to achieve this result
BLAST DESIGN case study

DRILLING THE PRE SPLIT LINE -

Blasthole Diameter: 165mm, 15–25o to the vertical
Effective Burden: 3.0 m
Spacing: 4.0 m
Pattern: Staggered

LOADING THE SPLIT LINE -

ANFO/ Polystyrene blends with low pour
densities of 0.4 – 0.53 gm/cc
Stemming Length: 2.4 Subgrade: 0.6m
Delay pattern is hooked up for shooting in the
direction of the dip
 BLAST DESIGN
DRILLING THE BUFFER LINE -
Blasthole diameter: 165mm
Effective Burden: 3.5m
Spacing: 4.5m Holes are drilled vertical

LOADING THE BUFFER LINE -

Hole toe is loaded with 12% Aluminized ANFO.
Stemming Length: 2.2m Subgrade: 0.6m

BLASTING THE SHEAR LINE -

Split line blasted 50 ms ahead of the buffer line
with the production blast.