SUMMER INTERNSHIP REPORT – 2020

(7TH MAY – 7TH JUNE)

ON
PART - 1
CONTROLL BLASTING TECHNIQUES

SUBMITTED BY
PRAKASH (18UMIE1222, 3RD YEAR)

UNDER GUIDANCE OF
DR. SHUSHIL BHANDARI
SIR [CEO at MINE

DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

EXCELLENCE]
M.B.M ENGINEERING COLLEGE JODHPUR

0
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER NO. TOPIC PAGE NO.
A ABSTRACT 2-3
B TABLE OF FIGURES 3

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 4-5

CHAPTER 2 CONTROL BLASTING 6
TECHNIQUES
2.1 LINE DRILLING METHOD 6-7
2.2 TRIM(CUSHION) 7-8
BLASTING METHOD
2.3 SMOOTH(CONTOUR) 8-9
BLASTING METHOD
2.4 PRE-SPLITTING METHOD 10-11
2.5 MUFFLE BLASTING 11-12
2.6 PRECISE AND ACCURATE 12-13
DELAY TIMINGS
2.7 AIR DECKING 13

CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDY – DESIGN 14

OF
EXPERIMENT
3.1 INTRODUCTION 14-15
3.2 TEST NO. 1 & RESULT 15-17
3.3 TEST NO. 2 & RESULT 17-19
3.4 TEST NO. 3 & RESULT 19-20
3.5 CASE STUDY 21
CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION 22
REFERENCES 23
1
 ABSTRACT
Blasting is a process of breaking the rock mass to excavate
the ore and materials. Many open blasting operations are
faced with the apparently conflicting requirements of
providing large quantities of fragmented rock and of
minimizing the amount of damage inflicted upon the
surrounding slopes. A slope in strong hard rock is not
necessarily stable, nor is a slope in weathered weak rock
necessarily unstable. In some case the reverse is true,
depending on the geometry of joints and weak planes.
Many slope failures in hard rock occur with no or very
little warning. Detection and monitoring may not be
feasible, or require sophisticated instruments and
procedures that are not practical at some locations. An
important element in avoiding catastrophes is to study
the site geology for dangerous conditions, implement the
types of blasting procedures that minimize failures, and
evaluate the potential use of reinforcement or other
mechanical stabilizing procedures.

Apart from undesired profile of excavation, the conventional

blasting damages the surrounding rock mass and structures
like buildings, etc. These damages can be minimized by
use of controlled blasting technique. The controlled
blasting technique (CBT) is used to produce the desired
stability of pit
walls/slope. The CBT used for slopes is specifically termed
as wall Controlled blasting technique (WCBT). WCBT
includes buffer blasting, trim blasting, line blasting and
pre-splitting. Among these, the pre-splitting is the most
commonly used technique. This technique has several
advantages such as minimum damage from back-break,
enhanced carrying capacity, higher structural stability and
stable final pit walls or slope at the designed angle thus
improving overall safety of wall/slope.
KEY WORDS: Wall control blasting technique, Rock mass
damage, Construction blasting vibration, Pre-splitting

LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE NO.
1 LINE DRILLING PATTERN 7
2 TRIM(CUSHION) BLASTING 8
PATTERN
3 SMOOTH(CONTOUR) BLASTING 9
PATTERN
4 PRINCIPAL OF PRE-SPLITTING 11

5 MUFFLE BLASTING 12
6 AIR DECKING PATTERN 13
7 BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST 17
NO.
1 & ITS RESULT
8 BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST NO. 19
2 & ITS RESULT
9 BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST 20
NO.
3

CHAPTER – 1
INTRODUCTION
To mitigate adverse impact of blasting in opencast and
underground mines
All techniques have one common objective that is better
distribution of explosive charge specially at the periphery of
the blast in order to minimize stressing and fracturing of
the rock beyond the excavation line.
Open pit mine and quarries are carrying out mega blasts
very often in order to enhance their production and thus
quantity of explosive consumption is increasing.
Increased population and spread of urbanization near
the mining sites have affected more people by blasting.
Increased public awareness and involvement of various
govt. agencies mining and environment laws and
regulations are becoming more and more strict in order to
prevent damages of properties, structures etc.
To improve overall environmental and safety
standards To Optimize overall cost
To get required fragmentation
To prevent environmental hazards of blasting
To achieve overall good % recovery of deposit

TO CONTROL THE ADVERSE IMPACTS OF BLASTING SUCH

AS:

 Over break
 Reduce ground vibrations
 Reduce fractures within remaining rockwalls
 Reduce noise
 Reduce dilution/ waste of ore
 CHAPTER – 2
CONTROL BLASTING TECHNIQUES

2.1- LINE DRILLING METHOD

This system involves a single row of closely spaced
uncharged holes along the neat excavation line.
This provides a plane of weakness to which the primary
blast can break.
It also causes some of the shock waves generated by the
blast to be reflected, which reduces shattering and
stressing in the finished wall of the host rock.
Line drill holes are generally percussive hammer holes (2
to 3 Inch diameter) having spaced two to four times the
hole diameter, drilled along the excavation line.
The blast holes directly adjacent to the line drill holes
(buffer holes) are generally loaded lighter (about 50% of
primary holes) and are closely spaced (about 50 to 75 %)
than primary holes.
This technique gives maximum protection to the host
rock to preserve its original strength.
The disadvantage of this system is high drilling cost due
to closed spacing and results are often unsatisfactory
because of poor hole alignment.

FIG.1 - LINE DRILLING

2.2 – TRIM (CUSHION) BLASTING

Trim or cushion blasting involves a single row of holes
along the specified final excavation line.
This technique generally uses 2 to 4 Inch diameter 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 a smooth wall with
minimum over-break.
It is better to put trim holes just before removing the final
berm.
As compare to line drilling technique trim or cushion
blasting is simpler and economical as increased hole
spacing are used.

FIG. 2 – TRIM (CUSHION) BLASTING

2.3 – SMOOTH (CONTOUR) BLASTING

A technique used (rarely in surface and mostly in
underground blasting) in which a row or closely spaced drill
holes are loaded with decoupled charges (charges with a
smaller diameter than the drill hole) and fired
simultaneously to produce an
excavation contour without fracturing or damaging the
rock behind or adjacent to the blasted face.
For promoting safety and economy in underground
workings, performance of blasting in headings, DRIVAGES,
tunnels and stopes becomes very important factor.
An ideal blast results in a minimum of damage to the host
rock with minimum of over-break.
In this technique perimeter or contour holes are drilled
along specified final excavation limits and are lightly loaded
than that of buffer holes and production holes.
The spacing is kept closer than buffer holes and
production holes.
Generally, as a thumb rule 10 to 12 times hole diameter
in medium to tough rock and 5 to 6 times hole diameter
in poor, fragmented rock was kept as spacing.

FIG. 3 – SMOOTH (CONTOUR) BLASTING

2.4 - PRE-SPLITTING
Pre-splitting or pre-shearing is the blasting method in
which cracks for the final contour are created by blasting
prior to the drilling of the rest of the holes for the blast
pattern.
Once the crack is made, it screens off the surroundings to
some extent from ground vibrations in the main round.
This is an effective way of restricting back-break and
ground vibration in large open pit, quarry blasting.
Pre-splitting helps in isolating blasting area from
remaining rock mass by creating an artificial discontinuity
along the final designed excavation line / plane against
which subsequent main blast breaks.
portion of blast induced ground vibration generated in
the main blast to propagate. A row of holes drilled at the
periphery (three sides) of the main blasting block at a
closer spacing, charged preferably with lesser quantity of
explosives than the production blast and blasted prior to
the main blast in an effort to create a fractured line and a
reflective plane at the excavation limit or plane.
Some of the shock waves from subsequent main blast
are reflected at the pre-split plane which results in
arresting a considerable
Advantages

 preventing/controlling back-break;
 controlling excessive ground vibrations;
  filtering the effects of explosive gases from
production blasting

FIG.4 - PRINCIPAL OF PRE- SPLITTING

2.5 – MUFFLE BLASTING

Fly-rock is another important adverse impact of blasting
Operations, specially, when conducted in the vicinity of
dense human habitation / congested areas.
Muffling or covering of blast holes properly before blasting,
is the common solution to prevent fly-rock from
damaging human habitants and structures. structures.
Generally, mat or mesh (40 mm x 40 mm size) made of
preferably of locally available steel ropes (5 to 6 mm) are
used
for muffling purpose. Sand bags weighing 40 to 50 kg are
kept over the mesh at an interval of 3 m.
Efficiency of arresting of fly-rock depends mainly on the
quality of muffling system implemented

FIG.5 - MUFFLE BLASTING

2.6 - PRECISE AND ACCURATE DELAY TIMING

Delay blasting (with millisecond delays) permits the
explosive engineers to divide the shot into smaller
charges, which are detonated in a predetermined
millisecond sequence at specific time intervals.
Millisecond delay initiation of the explosive charge is a
technique used in most open pit, quarry, tunnel and
underground rock blasting operations.
It serves to enhance fragmentation and direct rock
movement for increasing productivity.
The major advantages of delay blasting are:
 Improved fragmentation,
  Reduction of ground vibrations and air blast,
 Reduction of over-break and fly-rock,
 Improved productivity and lower cost.
Charge weight per delay is the most important
parameter for controlling blast induced ground vibration
and air-blast.

2.7 - AIR DECKING

The air deck technique Involve loading a small charge of
explosive at bottom and near the top, hole is sealed with a
plug (inflatable device) and then stemmed.
When explosive is fired, the peak bore hole pressure is
lowered due to expansion of gases in empty space, the
crushing and cracking is reduced around the hole.

FIG.6 - AIR DECKING

 CHAPTER – 3
CASE STUDY

3.1 – INTRODUCTION
The main objectives of pre-splitting in open pit mining
operations are: preventing/controlling back-break;
controlling excessive ground vibrations; and filtering the
effects of explosive gases from production blasting.
Presplitting in open pit mining is performed by arranging
a row of blasting holes behind the main blast pattern
(production holes). These holes will be blasted before or
at the same time with production holes and separate the
remaining rock mass from the blasting block. This artificially
created free surface has been shown to be successful in
controlling back break. The separating surface attenuates
propagation of expanding gases to the remaining rock
mass i.e. the final Walls. In this method, a buffer row is
placed in front of the pre-split to achieve better back-
break control. Buffer holes are a row of lightly loaded
blast holes in between the production and pre-split holes
and are intended to adequately fragment the rock
between the buffer row and the final wall without over-
break. With regard to securing the desired
fragmentation, the blast design is significantly important.
However, it must be noted that the fragmentation, too,
encounters problems because many factors are out of
reach of the blast engineer hence solution seems to be
difficult.
Design of blast experiments is a method of defining
optimal pattern of presplitting. In this study, pre-splitting
is tested in GOLEGOHAR iron mine.
The rest of the paper is as follows: first, the case study
is introduced and the results of three sets of pre-splitting
experiments are discussed. Finally, the conclusion of the
case study is summarized

3.2- TEST NO. 1 –

In this experiment, drilling and blasting operations were
performed in two phases. First the pre-splitting row was
drilled, charged, and blasted and then production and
buffer holes were drilled, charged, and blasted.
Drilling, charging and stemming Holes in pre-split row
were drilled with 1.2 m spacing and w restricted by the
mine’s final walls slope as indicated in Table 1. The
specified inclination for the last row has been identified
through numerous blast practices in this mine. The
spacing in the pre-split line has been decided primarily
based on the results of similar mines in the area. The
production holes drilled vertically in a 364 m pattern. A line
of buffer holes drilled with 4 m spacing and 80 Degree
inclination with respect to the horizon. Pre-splitting holes
were charged fully through plastic tubes with a diameter
of 40 mm. Holes were fully charged with no stemming.
Stemming length for production holes was 3.5–4 m and
for buffer holes 2.5 m. The main charge was ANFO and
hole diameter was 165 mm.
RESULTS OF TEST NO. 1 –
Test no. 1 resulted in formation of a crack 2.5 m behind
the pre-splitting row. Since, pre-splitting is applied to
form a separation surface only, but not rock fragmentation,
it can be concluded that the blast power was too high.
However, back- break might be due to the cratering and
gas loading from the buffer hole and not the pre-split.
The hypothesis of the excessive power of blasting has
been tested here. In the calculated hole Pressure, the
effects of faults, joint systems and other conditions such
as the status of the boundary between ore and waste
rock was not considered. By taking into account such
conditions, the required blast power is reduced.
 FIG.7 - BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST NO. 1 AND ITS RESULT

3.3 - TEST NO. 2

To reduce the blasting power of the explosives used in a
pre- splitting row, there are several alternatives. First, a
reduction of the charge diameter, which was not applicable
in this case, because the critical diameter of the blast
powder is around 40 mm; second, ‘air decking’ (discrete
charging through leaving empty intervals). This method is
not applicable due to limitations in accessing required
equipment as well as lack of
previous experience with this method in the mine. Addition
of salt to ANFO in specific ratio was proposed, which is
a fast, easy, and considerably cost-effective simple
alternative. By reducing the strength of explosive in the
last row, a considerable decrease in back break
phenomenon can be achieved. Salt and sawdust are
type of materials which can reduce the strength of
Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO). Some of the main
advantages of using salt are: a remarkable reduction in
back break, improvement of fragmentation and a reduction
of explosive mass.
Drilling, charging and stemming in this test, salt and ANFO
with a ratio of 0.3–0.7, i.e. 30 mass-% salt and 70 mass-%
of ANFO were mixed. Three metres of the very bottom of
pre-split holes were charged with pure ANFO and the
remaining length of the holes with a mixture of 6 kg salt and
14.5 kg ANFO. This mixed charge with salt was applied
only to the 12 holes which were closer to the fault.
Furthermore, the upper first two metres of all pre-split
holes were left empty (no charging or stemming was
applied). Pattern specifications of this test are shown in
Table 4. Production holes were drilled vertically and in a
blasting pattern of 364 m, while the buffer holes were
drilled with 80 degrees inclination and in a 4 m spacing
(the same as test no. 1). Both production and buffer
holes were charged with ANFO.

RESULTS OF TEST NO. 2 -In this case, back-brake is restricted to a

smaller region (Fig. 5) but the final wall still suffers from
excessive ore fragmentation. To improve these areas, a
third experiment was designed.

FIG.8 - BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST NO. 2 AND ITS RESULT

3.4 TEST NO. 3

Drilling, charging and stemming Drilling and charging
parameters of test no. 3 have been specified based on
the results of previous tests of this study. Geometry of
blasting patterns for pre-splitting, production, and buffer
holes are
5.5*1.5, 3 and 4 m (spacing) respectively. In this test, the
buffer holes were charged discretely in a way that the very
bottom 3.5 m of the holes were charged continuously, then
2 m of the hole was filled with crushed rocks, and then
the explosives were charged.

INSPECTION AND EVALUATION OF TEST NO. 3

In the third experiment, charging method of buffer holes
was modified (discrete charging). Also, spacing of
presplitting holes increased to 1.5 m, as well as the
distance from the last row of buffer holes, which was
increased to 5.5 m. All other effective parameters were kept
fixed. In this experiment, no back-break was observed and
the shape and stability of final wall surface and slope were
very satisfactory.

FIG.9 - BLAST PATTERN FOR TEST NO. 3 AND ITS RESULT

3.5 CASESTUDY CONCLUSION
The main objective of pre-splitting blasting is to produce
an artificial surface of separation between the blasted rock
mass and the remaining rock mass on the final wall,
which will lead to a smooth remaining wall without any
minimum back-break. In this study, three experiments were
performed. Results of the first test were not satisfactory
as the Full -Length charging of the holes resulted in
severe back-break. In test no. 2, by mixing salt with the
main charge (in a specific ratio) as well as leaving the top
part of
pre-splitting holes without charging or stemming, back
break was controlled, locally. In test no. 3, by increasing the
spacing of the pre-splitting holes and partitioning the
main charge in the buffer holes (power reduction), the
perfect result was achieved.
In conclusion, in this case study we were able to obtain
desired results from pre-splitting, experimentally and in a
very cost- effective way by:
 adding salt, in a mass ratio of 0.3–0.7, to the main
charge of the pre-splitting blast holes
 leaving these holes without stemming
 changing buffer holes charging method (discrete
charging).
 CHAPTER – 4

CONCLUSION:

 fortunately, technology continues to move the

process from an art to a science.
 Computerized drills, measure-while-drilling (MWD)
systems and electronic detonators, are gaining
wider acceptance in quarries, opencast and underground
mines.
 Efficient blasting techniques with computers and
micro- electronics have profoundly improved the
design and use of drills, drill tools, blast-initiation
products, explosives and seismographs.
 At the same time, development of safer, eco-friendly
non- primary explosives detonators (NPED) has
added the additional safety and efficiency in
blasting system.
 If the progress continues at this pace, days are not
far, when we run our mines or excavation activities
with no or very little nuisances of blasting or cleaner
environment can be maintained.
REFERENCES:
 Engineering rock blasting operations, book by SUSHIL
BHANDARI.
 http://mineportal.in
 https://www.911metallurgist.com
 https://www.researchgate.net
 https://www.slideshare.net