OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING

BY BLASTING
***
OPERATING LARGE
OPENCAST COAL MINES
IN A COST
EFFECTIVE WAY.
Author: Partha Das Sharma, (B.Tech-Hons.),
E.mail: sharmapd1@gmail.com
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OVERBURDEN
SIDE CASTING
BY
BLASTING

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY
BLASTING
Advantages of Overburden Blast Casting
• Saving in operating and capital cost of excavating
equipments for removal of overburden.
• Saving in maintenance cost of excavating
equipments for removal of overburden.
• Time for removal of casting overburden by
excavating machines is reduced and thereby
productivity is increased.
•The saving in operating, power, capital and
maintenance cost of excavating machinery.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY
BLASTING
Advantages of Overburden Blast Casting
• Because of reduction in requirement of spares
for maintenance etc., other hidden cost related to
inventory management of spares of excavating
machine also reduced.
• Smaller size of excavating equipment needed
with lesser manpower, as they have to handle
comparatively lesser volume of overburden.
• If there is mismatch of capacities of excavating
equipment, by overburden blast casting, Coal
production can be improved.
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OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY
BLASTING

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY
BLASTING
Blast design parameters:
• NATURE OF OVERBURDEN, STRATA CONDITION AND
GEOLOGY
• NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPLOSIVES
• PARAMETER DESIGN AND BLAST GEOMETRY
a) Fixing of Spacing and Burden
b) Stemming
c) Blast hole Inclination
d) Blast hole Diameter
e) Initiation sequences and selection of Delay Intervals

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPLOSIVES:

It has been seen in developed countries like USA, Canada,
Australia etc., high energy explosives can give better casting
results.
However, due to cheapness ANFO is being used in dry holes
for casting purposes.
In India, due to non-availability of better quality of prilled
Ammonium Nitrate most of the overburden blast casting
experiments in open pit workings was done with high density
aluminized cartridge Slurry explosives or with Site mixed Bulk
Emulsion explosives.
In fact, in overburden blast casting the energy of explosives
going down in boreholes is most important factor.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPLOSIVES:

A study of blast casting with various types of explosives
using high-speed photography showed that by maintaining
constant hole diameter, burden could be increased when going
from ANFO to higher energy explosives.
At the same time for a given hole diameter and constant
burden, throw velocities could also be increased when going
from ANFO to higher energy explosives.
Side Casting requires increased burden ejection velocity.
This can be accomplished only by increasing Energy of
explosives per unit of mass of overburden thrown.

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPLOSIVES:

The way of increasing energy is to keep higher specific
charge, i.e., at higher Kg of explosives per Cum of rock.
As in cast blasting the ejection velocity and lateral
displacement of burden rock is most important, and are related
to the weight rather than the volume, thus energy factors of the
explosives used must be used in designing pattern for blast
casting.
Therefore, it is the amount energy rather than the quantity of
explosives that controls the displacement of rock.
It may be mentioned here that, breakage mechanism of rock
by explosives is done by two ways, i.e., by stress wave
generated from explosive detonation (Shock) force and by the
borehole pressure created by the detonation gas pressure.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

NATURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPLOSIVES:

Majority of shattering in rock, rock breakage, fragmentation etc. are
effected by stress wave generated by explosive and detonation gas
pressure is mainly responsible for heaving and throw.
As better-fragmented rock (acquires more surface area) is
displaced more effectively at longer distance than poorly fragmented
rock, the explosive characteristic should be such that it provides
sufficient shock wave for achieving better fragmentation and
considerable amount of gas energy for maximum throw of blasted
overburden.
It has been observed that, Emulsion explosives address both
shock and gas energy well and effective in overburden blast
castings.
For effective overburden blast casting, many authors have
suggested a higher specific charge with higher explosives energy, by
a factor of 1.4 to 1.6 than the conventional blast.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY
BLASTING

OTHER RELATED ASPECTS WITH REGARD TO

OVERBURDEN CASTING :

• Relationship between Bench height and Bench

width
• Characteristics of Overburden material
• Ground vibration due to overburden blast casting

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Relationship between Bench height and Bench width:

Higher the height of Bench more percentage of material
thrown into spoil dump.
Percentage of cast also depends upon width, i.e., distance of
high wall from the free face.
More energy needed to throw overburden, if the distance of
high wall is more from the free face, i.e., if width of bench is
more.
Thus, there exists relationship between the percentage of
blasted material thrown and H/W ratio (Bench height and bench
width ratio).
For successful overburden blast casting H/W ratio should be
kept between 0.7 and 1.0.
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OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING
Relationship between percentage of cast & Bench height and width
(H/W)

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Characteristics of Overburden material:

Overburden blast casting is suitable in hard and
medium hard rock, when heavy blasting is required for
fragmentation.
In general, overburden blast casting is not feasible
enough in unconsolidated, loose rock like soft clay, loose
sand etc., which do not require blasting at all.
Blast casting can effectively be done in dry as well as
wet ground conditions, only suitable explosives are to be
selected as per ground condition.

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Ground vibration due to overburden blast casting :

For effective blast casting of overburden the requirement of
specific charge (i.e., requirement of explosives in Kg per
Volume of rock blasted in Kg/ Cum) is quite high as compared
to blasting required for conventional workings.
Because of that, the ground vibration, in case of overburden
blast casting is higher than that of conventional method of
workings.
But strangely, the degree of increase in ground vibration is
not as per the increase in specific charge.
This may be because in successful overburden blast casting
the excess energy of explosives used for better fragmentation
and for moving the blasted material away from the blasting site
and not in generating ground vibration.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Ground vibration due to overburden blast casting :

Since, slightly higher ground vibration is generated in
case of overburden blast casting, it is suggested to adopt
this technique in the mines where residential / industrial
buildings and permanent structures are far away from blast
site.
Mines closer to permanent structures should carryout
some experimental blasts to assess the effects on ground
vibrations before carrying out this technique on a regular
basis.
Techniques such as, use of pre-splitting of production
blast and introduction of some delays for group of holes in a
row subject to restriction of maximum charge per delay, may
be tried, in order to reduce ground vibration.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING
POST BLAST PROFILE OF BLASTED MUCK

q A sizable portion of the overburden is thrown in de-coaled area.

q The maximum depression is generally observed at the high wall side from the top
and the blasted muck profile smoothly goes towards de-coaled area resulting notable
depression at the free face side also.
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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Blast pattern and Initiation sequences of Blast Castings:

Initiation of sequences and selection of delay intervals
are one of the most important criteria in overburden
blast casting.
Effectiveness of casting can be increased when all the
holes in the rows are detonated simultaneously and
subsequent rows are detonated with milli-second delays.
Here our prime objective is to have throw, row by row
without hindrances. For that, clear free faces are to be
achieved for each row and the movement of materials of
each row should not have any hindrances like air
collisions or flight collisions of the fragmented material.

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING
Blast pattern and Initiation sequences of Blast Castings:
For that purpose, row-by-row initiation sequence is preferable for
creation of free faces at the front of each row.
Secondly, the delay intervals between rows should be selected in
such a way to prevent any hindrances in movement of fragments
like air collision.
It has been observed with increasing inter- row delay intervals
from front to rear row the casting of overburden is better.
On an average, the delay interval of about 10 milli-second per
meter of burden between first and second rows, while increasing
proportionately to about 20 milli-second per meter of burden
between fifth and sixth rows, should be given.
Where there is restriction in respect of ground vibration, a group
of holes in the row, subject to allowable maximum charge per delay
can be fired with minimum delay interval between the groups of
holes in the same row.
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OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING
Typical Blast Initiation Sequence and Delay Patterns

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OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING
Typical Blast Initiation Sequence and Delay Patterns

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Modern Technology & Equipments used:

Some of the modern equipments available which can be employed
purposefully are:
q Modern surveying equipment and its computer software provided a
wealth of valuable information on a blast and post-blast scenario. These
include overburden – coal ratio, optimum front hole location, custom
loading information for front row hole burden, pre-blast mapping, post-
blast mapping & determination of cast / throw, volumetric calculation for
swell factor and cast percentage for basis of evaluation of economic
advantages.
q High Speed Photography recording is very efficient and extremely useful
instrument for analyzing of blasts. Any hindrance in free movement of
projectiles or air collision of fragments can be detected and accordingly
delay sequence timing can be adjusted. Now a days, high speed photography
to the tune of more than 500 frames per second is in vogue, which is very
useful for the purpose.

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 OVERBURDEN SIDE CASTING BY BLASTING

Modern Technology & Equipments used:

q Velocity of Detonation Recorder is another useful instrument
which can be used to determine explosive performance in the hole.
q Seismograph or Ground vibration recorder is essential in
documenting the un-wanted side effects of blasting such as Ground
vibration and Air blast.

Conclusion :
q Thus, it has been observed from the above examples that the
technique of overburden side casting by blasting is very much cost
effective.
q The optimum blasting parameter is mine specific. Therefore, more
experimental blasts required to carryout, in order to establish the
technique in a particular mines for effective cost benefits.
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THANK
YOU

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