Rock Mech Rock Eng (2011) 44:483–490
DOI 10.1007/s00603-010-0132-3
TECHNICAL NOTE
Modelling Rock Blasting Considering Explosion Gas Penetration
Using Discontinuous Deformation Analysis
Youjun Ning • Jun Yang • Guowei Ma •
Pengwan Chen
Received: 8 September 2010 / Accepted: 25 December 2010 / Published online: 20 January 2011
Ó Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract Explosion gas plays an important role in rock
mass fragmentation and cast in rock blasting. In this
technical note, the discontinuous deformation analysis
method is extended for bench rock blasting by coupling
the rock mass failure process and the penetration effect of
the explosion gas based on a generalized artificial joint
concept to model rock mass fracturing. By tracking the
blast chamber evolution dynamically, instant explosion
gas pressure is derived from the blast chamber volume
using a simple polytropic gas pressure equation of state
and loaded on the blast chamber wall. A bench blasting
example is carried out. The blast chamber volume and
pressure time histories are obtained. The rock failure and
movement process in bench rock blasting is reproduced
and analysed.
Y. Ning  G. Ma (&)
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798,
Singapore
e-mail: ma@civil.uwa.edu.au
Y. Ning
e-mail: yjning@ntu.edu.sg
Y. Ning  J. Yang  P. Chen
State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology,
Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
e-mail: yangj@bit.edu.cn
P. Chen
e-mail: pwchen@bit.edu.cn
G. Ma
School of Civil and Resource Engineering, University
of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley,
WA 6009, Australia
Keywords Bench rock blasting  Rock mass fracturing 
Explosion gas pressure  Numerical modelling 
Discontinuous deformation analysis
1 Introduction
In rock blasting, rock masses may be fragmented and
accelerated under both the effect of the explosion shock
waves propagating as stress waves and the expansion of the
explosion gas in the rock mass (Bhandari 1977; McHugh
1983). Although the fragmentation of the rock would be
largely governed by the initial crack patterns generated by
the stress wave loadings, it is also generally acknowledged
that the amount of energy contained in stress waves takes
only a small proportion of the total energy released by the
explosive, e.g., Kutter and Fairhurst (1971) referred to the
experimental findings of Fogelson et al. (1959) and Nicholls
and Hooker (1962) that in granite gneiss this proportion is
10–18% and in salt it is only 2–4%. The remaining part of
energy is contained to a large extent in the high temperature
and high pressure explosion gas. Meanwhile, recognized
that the rock subjected to the explosion gas pressure has
already been preconditioned by the explosion shock waves,
the effect of the two parts may be validly considered sep-
arately (Kutter and Fairhurst 1971). Therefore, it is neces-
sary and reasonable to consider the explosion gas pressure
in rock blast simulation specially.
The effect of the explosion gas can be simplified to be
simulated by applying fixed user supplied gas pressure time
histories on borehole walls. The problem with this
approach is that the resulting rock fragmentation and
motion are essentially supplied by users (Munjiza et al.
2000). Moreover, the rock mass failure and motion patterns
due to the penetration effect of the explosion gas into the
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484
rock mass will fail to be represented. For the simulation of
rock mass massive failures and the motion of the generated
fragments in rock blasting, discontinuous numerical
methods are quite applicable (e.g. Preece 1994; Mortazavi
and Katsabanis 2001; Tordoir et al. 2009). The failures
among discrete elements/particles also create the space for
the explosion gas to disperse and thus the penetration effect
of the explosion gas can be simulated.
The objective of this technical note is to develop the
discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) method for
bench rock blasting simulation by coupling the rock mass
failure process and the penetration effect of the explosion
gas. The blast-induced rock mass fracturing is modelled
based on a generalized artificial joint concept; the evo-
lution of the blast chamber is tracked dynamically; the
instant blast chamber pressure obtained by a simple
polytropic gas pressure equation of state is applied on the
block boundaries along the blast chamber wall. A simu-
lation example is carried out and the simulation result is
analysed.
2 Blast-Induced Rock Fracturing Modelling
2.1 Generalized Artificial Joint Definition
DDA (Shi 1988) computes the static and dynamic behav-
iours of discrete blocky systems. For the rapid attenuation
of stress waves while propagating across block boundaries,
the traditional DDA essentially can only be used in the
simulation of jointed rock mass blasting, but not in con-
tinuous rock blasting (Ning 2008). In this technical note,
the rock mass in a rock blasting model is divided into
discrete blocks in advance. The effect of the explosion
shock waves on rock fragmentation is regarded to be
reflected by the advance discretization. Thereafter, the
failure between blocks and the subsequent block motions
under the effect of the explosion gas pressure are to be
modelled with the DDA. As the analysed domain is already
a jointed rock mass, its behaviour under the explosion gas
pressure loadings can be simulated effectively by the DDA
method.
In an initial rock blasting model, discontinuities that do
not violate the failure criteria are all defined as artificial
joints, namely the generalized artificial joints, which may
include the discontinuities that are introduced for the
advance discretization of the rock mass, and also the
actual pre-existing natural discontinuities with strength
having not met with the failure criteria. Then, the frac-
turing of the rock mass along the artificial joint planes can
be predicted based on the failure criteria and the pene-
tration of the explosion gas into the rock mass can be
modelled.
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Y. Ning et al.
2.2 Fracturing Modelling
Both tensile and shear failures are considered in the frac-
turing modelling using the maximum tensile strength cri-
terion and the Mohr–Coulomb criterion, respectively. The
maximum tensile strength criterion is given by,
r ¼ rt ð1Þ
and the Mohr–Coulomb criterion by,
s ¼ c þ r tan u ð2Þ
where r and s are, respectively, the normal and shear
contact stresses between the two sides of an artificial joint,
rt, c and u are the tensile strength, cohesion and friction
angle of the artificial joint, respectively. After fracturing,
an artificial joint will be transformed as a real joint (frac-
ture) and its strength will be reduced. The friction angle is
supposed to be unchanged, the cohesion is to be reduced to
a small value to account for the irregularity of the fracture
surface that exists in reality (Ning et al. 2011), and no
tension will be endured. In such a way the energy con-
sumed in fracturing is considered and the blocks at the two
sides can detach each other thereafter.
As fractures can only develop along artificial joint
planes, triangle blocks may have relatively small influence
on the fracture evolution routes because they have the
smallest average interior angles. Furthermore, equilateral
triangle blocks have the smallest deformation errors in
rotation with first order deformation approximations (Shi
1988) as they have the smallest vertex-centre distance, thus
equilateral triangular mesh is relatively ideal for the
advance discretization. In rock blasting modelling, each
fragment in the final blasting pile should still consist of
more than one blocks bonded by artificial joints not yet
fractured, which indicates that enough artificial joints have
been set for the rock to be fractured compared to the
explosion gas energy, and thus the fragment size can be
forecast by the simulation. However, the increase of the
joint density means the rapid increase of the computer run
times due to the increase of contact between blocks.
Restricted by the speed of desktop computers, currently in
the simulation as many as possible pre-divided blocks are
to be used.
3 Explosion Gas Pressure Effect Modelling
3.1 Blast Chamber Evolution
Figure 1 shows a section profile of a bench rock blasting
model across the borehole axis. The advance discretization
is carried out by dividing the rock mass into triangular
blocks and discretization refinement is done around the
Modelling Rock Blasting Considering Explosion Gas Penetration
free surface 4m
A rock mass
a f
stemming 4
B
free surface
10 m borehole
C main
13m w
D RP
d
e
6m 3m
3m
b c
16
Fig. 1 A bench blasting model. Boundary ab, bc and cd are non-
reflecting boundaries. w is the minimum resistance distance, i.e., the
distance from the charge centre to the incline free surface
borehole to account for the intensive fragmentation of the
rock under the effect of the explosion shock waves previ-
ously. Assuming the joints among the blocks have strength
not yet meeting with the failure criteria, they are the gen-
eralized artificial joints. Under the effect of the explosion
gas pressure, the borehole will expand to form the main
blast chamber and fractures will appear in the surrounding
rock mass.
Figure 2a is the blast chamber expanding sketch of the
borehole, where the dashed rectangle in the centre is the
section profile of the initial column borehole with a radius
of R0 and a depth of h0. The dispersing range of the
explosion gas is assumed as a function of time t and a
constant velocity VP. In the figure RP is the maximum
dispersing radius of the explosion gas at time t, dP is the
dispersing distance of the explosion gas upwards and
downwards at t. Ignoring the diameter of the initial bore-
hole, then
dP ¼ RP ¼ VP t: ð3Þ
Thus, the blast chamber consists of the main blast
chamber and the surrounding connected fractures within
the range of RP and hP (hP = h0 ? 2dP). The unconnected
fractures within this range and all the fractures outside this
range do not belong to the chamber. Figure 2b is the
borehole distribution sketch in bench blasting, where a and
b are the borehole spacing and bench width, respectively.
At the beginning of the calculation, the blast chamber is
the initial borehole. As time step goes by, the block
boundaries along the blast chamber wall in the previous
time step may have new positions due to the movement of
the corresponding blocks. Meanwhile, new fractures may
appear in the surrounding rock mass and even isolated
485
stemming
dP
connected cracks
R0
chamber hP
unconnected cracks
(a) blast chamber expanding
a
boreholes
R RP
R0
b
rock mass
free surface
(b) borehole distribution
Fig. 2 Blast chamber expanding and borehole distribution sketches
in bench blasting. R0, RP and R are the radius of the initial borehole,
the explosion gas dispersing range and the equivalent borehole,
respectively. a and b are the borehole spacing and the bench width,
respectively
blocks may be generated (see Fig. 3). In a new time step,
the updated blast chamber profile can be searched by
starting from the block boundaries along the previous blast
chamber wall to find out the newly generated connected
fractures according to fracture surface connectivity (illus-
trated in Fig. 3), then the chamber wall is recorded for the
application of the explosion gas pressure loadings and the
search of the blast chamber profile in the next time step.
3.2 Blasting Chamber Volume and Pressure
In each time step, based on the record of the block
boundaries along the blast chamber wall, the cross-
sectional blast chamber area S can be calculated. However,
as shown Fig. 3, the blast chamber may have very compli-
cated geometrical characteristics. To compute S directly is
unadvisable. Alternatively, it can be derived in an indirect
way. As shown in Fig. 3, S is the area within RP and hP
subtracting the block area within this range. Some blocks
may be entirely within this range and some blocks may be
123
486 Y. Ning et al.

The variety of the explosion gas pressure in the blast

chamber depends on the expansion of the chamber, which,
dP
in turn, is related to the rock mass properties. The instant
Δ
chamber pressure can be calculated by detonation product
pressure equation of state (EoS). Here, the explosion gas is
assumed to expand ideally with no heat loss and a simple
block at R P fracture connectivity polytropic EoS is utilized,
 c
explosion gas V0
h P ¼ P0 ; ð8Þ
V
P
hP
P where P0 and V0 are the initial chamber pressure and
P artificial joint volume, respectively, P and V are the chamber pressure and
isolated block P
volume at time t, respectively, c is a constant to control the
P adiabatic attenuating process of the gas pressure. From
RP
R0 experimental results, the value of c is expected to be in the
R range of 1.2–3.0 for high temperature and high density gas
P that occur in practice (Paine and Please 1994). In borehole
rock mass
explosions, it is often taken between 1.2 and 1.4 (e.g.
Nilson et al. 1985). As shown in Fig. 2b, each borehole
bears the resistance of rock mass with a length of a single
Fig. 3 Blast chamber expanding and explosion gas pressure loading
illustration. R0, RP and R are the radius of the initial borehole, the borehole spacing a (the shadow region). In Fig. 2a, with
explosion gas dispersing range and the equivalent borehole, respec- plane stress assumption (the assumption in the original
tively. P is the instant explosion gas pressure DDA), the rock mass in the model has a unit length in the
third direction. So the following blast chamber pressure is
half inside and half outside. All the block area within this to be loaded actually
range will be subtracted. Meanwhile, the area of the frac-
P0 ¼ P=a: ð9Þ
tures that are not connected to the blast chamber and the area
of artificial joints not fractured yet within RP and hP will also 3.3 Explosion Gas Pressure Loading
be subtracted. As polygons, the area of each block, each
unconnected fracture and each artificial joint are computed In each time step during the application of the explosion
using the simplex integration precisely (Shi 1988). gas pressure, the instant blast chamber pressure is loaded
To approximate the blast chamber volume V three on all the block boundaries along the blast chamber wall
dimensionally, the blast chamber is equivalent as a column within the dispersing range of the explosion gas. In DDA
with a radius of R and a depth of h (see Fig. 3). Assuming with first-order deformation approximations, the block
the equivalent column blast chamber is obtained by the boundaries always keep straight. The explosion gas pres-
uniform expansion of the initial column borehole both sure is applied as line loading on each corresponding block
towards the axis direction and the radial direction, and boundary perpendicularly towards the block interior uni-
ignoring the diameter of the initial borehole, the expansion formly. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the pressure is loaded on
range D of the equivalent blast chamber from the initial the main blast chamber wall, the connected fracture sur-
borehole both upwards and downwards is equal to the faces and the boundaries of isolated blocks inside the blast
radius of the equivalent column blast chamber. Then, chamber.
h ¼ h0 þ 2D ¼ h0 þ 2R: ð4Þ Regarding block i in a DDA model, denoting the two ends
of a loaded boundary as P1 (x1, y1) and P2 (x2, y2), respec-
Thus, tively, in each time step, the explosion gas pressure loading
S ¼ 2Rh ¼ 2Rðh0 þ 2RÞ: ð5Þ applied on the boundary is a constant force F (FX, FY), where
F = Pl, FX and FY are the components in X and Y directions,
So
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  respectively, and P is the instant blast chamber pressure, l is
2 the length of the boundary. The parametric equation of the
R ¼ 0:25 h0 þ 4S  h0 ð6Þ
boundary is
(
and x ¼ ðx2  x1 ÞT þ x1
0  T  1: ð10Þ
V ¼ pR2 h ¼ pR2 ðh0 þ 2RÞ: ð7Þ y ¼ ðy2  y1 ÞT þ y1

123
Modelling Rock Blasting Considering Explosion Gas Penetration 487

The potential energy of the loading on the boundary is Table 1 Joint mechanical parameters
0 1
Z1   Z1   Joint type Friction Cohesion Tensile strength
Fx Fx
P ¼  u; v ldt ¼ @Di T
Ti dtA
T
l; angle u (°) c (MPa) rt (MPa)
Fy Fy
0 0 Artificial joint 45 2 0.5
ð11Þ Real joint 45 0.05 0

where (u, v) are the displacement at the boundary, DTi and TTi
are the deformation variable matrix and the displace-
ment transformation matrix, respectively. Minimizing this 5

potential energy by taking the derivatives with respect to DTi ,

then we get 4

chamber volume /m3

Z1  
oP Fx 3
f ¼ ¼ TTi dt l r ¼ 1; . . .; 6: ð12Þ
odri Fy
0
2
Computing the integral of the components of TTi , a
6 9 1 matrix is obtained and added to the force sub-matrix 1
of the simultaneous equilibrium equations (Shi 1988),
0 1
Fx 0
B Fy C
B C
B Fx ðy2 þ y1  2y0 Þ=2 þ Fy ðx2 þ x1  2x0 Þ=2 C 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
lB
B
C ! Fi
C
B Fx ðx2 þ x1  2x0 Þ=2 C
time /ms
@ Fy ðy2 þ y1  2y0 Þ=2 A (a) volume expanding
Fx ðy2 þ y1  2y0 Þ=4 þ Fy ðx2 þ x1  2x0 Þ=4 1000
ð13Þ
800
where (x0, y0) is the center of gravity of block i.
chamber pressure /MPa

600

4 A Simulation Example
400

Considering the bench blasting model in Fig. 1, where the

200
borehole diameter is 0.1 m, boundary ab, bc and cd are
viscous non-reflecting boundaries (Jiao et al. 2007; Ning
et al. 2010). The dip angle of the incline free surface ef is 0

about 78.7°. The borehole space is chosen as a = 5.0 m.

The stemming is not to be modelled directly. Considering
that explosion gas venting may occur after the fly out of the
stemming from the borehole, which is a quite common
phenomenon in bench blasting practice, the gas pressure is
supposed to disappear when the pressure reaches a certain
low level (5.0 MPa is used here). It is acknowledged that
venting of the gas through the borehole or large cracks may
drastically reduce the duration of gas-pressure action
(Kutter and Fairhurst 1971; Mortazavi and Katsabanis
2001).
After the initiation of detonation, the gas pressure acting
on the borehole wall rises almost instantaneously to its peak,
which for all practical purposes can be assumed as one-
quarter to one-half of the detonation pressure (Kutter and
Fairhurst 1971). Here, the initial chamber pressure is
assumed as P0 = 1.0 GPa, and we select VP = 100 m/s,
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
time /ms
(b) pressure attenuating
Fig. 4 Blast chamber volume and pressure time histories
c = 1.4. The density, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio of
the rock mass are selected as q = 2,600 kg/m3, E = 55 GPa
and l = 0.3, respectively. The strength of the generalized
artificial joints used for the advance discretization and the
real joints (fractures) are shown in Table 1. A dynamic
parameter adjustment (Ning et al. 2010) for DDA dynamic
computations is applied in the simulation, in which the
dynamic parameter was improved as a function of the step
time and block individual velocity to make its evaluation
more reasonable.

123
488 Y. Ning et al.

Fig. 5 Simulated bench

blasting process: from the step 300 time = 0.010784 s step 900 time = 0.034567 s

fracturing of the rock mass to PStrs: 1.898899 e7 0 -1.630307 e7 PStrs: 4.047255 e5 0 -2.033132 e6
the formation of the final
blasting pile under the effect
of the explosion gas pressure

(a) t = 0.01 s (b) t = 0.03 s

step 3400 time = 0.225005 s step 7800 time = 0.554041 s

PStrs: 3.614344 e5 0 -3.295816 e6

PStrs: 5.395956 e5 0 -2.251204 e6 sliding line

sliding line

(c) t = 0.23 s (d) t = 0.55 s

step 147300 time = 7.490404 s

PStrs: 3.721320 e5 0 -1.013253 e6

new free surface

P

(e) t = 7.49 s

Figure 4 is the blast chamber volume and pressure time
histories. At 15.62 ms, the chamber volume reaches
4.34 m3 and the pressure drops below 5.0 MPa, thus the
explosion gas pressure loading disappears. At the early
stage, no fracture exists in the rock mass, so the increase of
the chamber volume is mainly caused by the expansion of
the initial borehole due to rock deformation and the
expansion of the explosion gas upwards along the chamber;
after fractures appear, the resistant ability of the bench
decreases, which makes the main blast chamber expand
easier and the gas will penetrate into the surrounding
connected fractures, thus the chamber expansion acceler-
ates as time goes by. It is also noted that local sudden
increase of chamber volume exists during the expansion,
which can be attributed to the emergence of dominant
fractures. Similar phenomenon was also reported by
Mortazavi and Katsabanis (2001) with the DDA to simulate
the movement of rock blocks under explosion gas pressure
loadings in bench blasting by taking block rigid-body
damping into account. However, local decrease of the
chamber volume reported in their work is unreasonable in
practice.
Figure 5 gives several instances within the simulated
blasting process (the big block at the right side of the model
is used to accept the blasting pile). In Fig. 5a, under the
effect of the explosion gas pressure, the blast chamber
expands and fractures appear in the bench. Due to the
bending effect, there are more fractures in the lower part of
the bench near the incline free surface than in other parts.
The penetration of the explosion gas into the fractures may
accelerate the further failure of the bench and affect its
pattern. In Fig. 5b, after the explosion gas pressure finishes,
even more fractures appear in the bench, and a dominant
fracture emerges in its foot. The whole bench moves
towards the incline free surface direction and blocks near
the bottom of the incline free surface begin to peel off. In
Fig. 5c, the whole bench is thrown up and fractured more
over. The bench breaks off near the bottom of the initial

123
Modelling Rock Blasting Considering Explosion Gas Penetration 489

30 modelling with the UDEC. However, the break off and

Block A sliding in the foot of the bench can hardly appear in
25 Block B
practice. This unrealistic description in the simulation is
Block C
related to the advance discretization strategy, and is also
20 Block D
because that the borehole over drilling which is often uti-
velocity /(m⋅s )
-1

15
lized in engineering is not considered in the model. Similar
dense fracture distribution in the lower part of the bench
10 near the incline free surface shown in Fig. 5a was derived
by Minchinton and Lynch (1996) with a coupled finite/
5 discrete element gas flow code although it was attributed to
the stress reflection at the free surface.
0
Figure 6 is the horizontal velocity and displacement time
-0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
histories of the four blocks, respectively, marked by A, B, C
time /s and D in Fig. 1. Due to having the smallest distance to the
(a) velocity minimum resistance distance line (denoted as w in Fig. 1, the
distance from the charge centre to the incline free surface),
14
Block A
block C has the largest peak velocity. The sequence of the
12 Block B peak velocity of these four blocks is: VC [ VB [ VD [ VA.
Block C Meanwhile, Block B has the largest final displacement and
10 block D near the foot of the bench has the smallest final
Block D
displacement /m

displacement. The sequence of the final displacement of

8
6 these four blocks reflects the general moving process and its
4
2 horizontal peak velocity does not mean that it has larger final
0 also affected by block impact during movement and its
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5
time /s
(b) displacement
Fig. 6 Horizontal velocity and displacement time histories of the
four blocks marked by A, B, C and D in Fig. 1
stemming and the bench foot, where sliding takes place.
Meanwhile, fractures emerge in the rock mass at the left
side of the initial borehole. In Fig. 5d, the bench is thrown
further. Considerable failure can be found in the rock mass
at the left side of the initial borehole and blocks there begin
to drop down. Figure 5e is the final blasting pile status at
7.49 s in which all blocks have gotten still. The new incline
free surface is formed with a dip angle of about 64.9°. The
blasting pile distributes in a range of 11.16 m in front of
the original bench foot and in a range of 19.62 m in front of
the new bench foot. The maximum height of the main
blasting pile is 7.31 m (where denoted by ‘‘P’’).
The break off and sliding in the bench near the bottom
of the stemming can be attributed to the shear effect of the
explosion gas pressure loading there. For this sliding,
blocks upon the sliding line have smaller horizontal dis-
placement than the blocks below. Similar result was also
presented by Firth and Taylor (2001) in bench blasting
these four blocks is: dB [ dC [ dA [ dD. The movement of
regularity of all the blocks in the bench under the explosion
gas pressure loading. It can be found that a block has larger
horizontal displacement. The final displacement of a block is
6 7 8
vertical distance to the bench foot.
The widely utilized bench blasting operation has a long
tradition and yet the mechanism of throw and blasting pile
formation is not clearly understood (Zhu 2009). In the
above example, the rock mass failure and the movement of
the fragments to form the final blasting pile in bench rock
blasting are reproduced. The simulation result and its
analysis can help to understand the throw and blasting pile
formation process in bench blasting. With a similar
explosion gas penetration modelling procedure applied,
other kinds of blasting operations like crater blasting can
also be investigated (Ning et al. 2011).
5 Conclusions
The DDA method is extended to simulate bench rock
blasting by coupling the explosion gas penetration effect
and the rock mass failure and motion process base on a
generalized artificial joint definition to model rock mass
fracturing, while the effect of the explosion shock waves is
indirectly considered in the advance discretization of the
rock mass. The evolution of the blast chamber is tracked
dynamically and the explosion gas is assumed to distribute
identically in its dispersing range. A simple explosion

123
490
product pressure equation of state is used to calculate the
blast chamber pressure based on the instant chamber vol-
ume, which is then loaded on the blast chamber wall as line
loadings. More complete explosion gas dispersing and
pressure attenuating descriptions can also be implemented
based on the proposed blast chamber tracking and volume
calculating method.
In the simulation example, the blast chamber volume
and pressure time histories are obtained. The rock mass
fracturing process and the motion of the generated rock
blocks to form the final blasting pile are reproduced. Rock
mass failure and movement process and its regularity in
bench rock blasting are discussed and analysed. More
parametric study (e.g., the evaluation of VP and its influ-
ence on the simulation result) of the extended DDA method
for rock blasting modelling and its calibration especially by
real engineering data will be carried out in the future.
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