Influence of Blasthole Delay-Times on

Fragmentation as well as Characteristics

of and Blast Damage behind a remaining
Bench Face through Model Scale Blasting
Peter Schimek, Finn Ouchterlony & Peter Moser
Chair of Mining Engineering and Mineral Economics
Montan-Universitaet Leoben, Austria.
Development of a new blasting site 2011
 Prior to 2011, shooting of free cylinders and blocks
 Heavily reinforced concrete site built 2011
 Yoke coupled by tamped sand for wave transmission
 Mortar blocks with rows of holes grouted into yoke
 Comparable to bench blasts with free bottom
 Used during Peter Schimek’s PhD work
yoke

yoke
2
 Row wise blasting of mortar blocks
 Magnetite mortar testing blocks shot 2011-2014
 5 holes in a row (10 mm diameter)
 Spacing: 110 mm; Burden: 70 mm
 Blasted rows: 3 or 4
 Row 1 – virgin
 R2-4 – pre-conditioned
 20 g/m PETN cord
 Delay: 0, 28, 73, 140 µs
(0, 0.4, 1.0 or 2.0 ms/m)
3
 Row wise blasting of mortar blocks
 Research questions
 RQ 1: Is the delay-time influencing the fragmentation
and back-break in specimens with given blast pre-
conditioning by 1st row blast?
 RQ 2: How far does the pre-conditioning by the 1st row
blasts reach?
 RQ 3: How many rows have to be blasted before the
pre-conditioning becomes constant?
 RQ 4: How is the delay-time influencing the cracks
created?
4
 Row wise blasting of mortar blocks
 Delays used for research questions; stage 1-3 = 2012-2014
RQ 3: How many rows
to blast before pre-
conditioning constant?
RQ 2: How deep is the
pre-conditioning by 1st
row?
RQ 1: For same pre-
conditioning, is there
an influence of delay
time?
5
 Measurements and analysis
 Measurement of crack development
 Surface characteristics of the bench face
o 3D-model of the bench face with BlastMetrix
 Crack detection; surface and interior
o Dye-penetrant spray and AutoCAD
 Quantification of fragmentation
 Particle size distribution P(k), 0.5-125 mm
 Determination of k-values; k30, k50 and k80 [mm]
 Coefficient of uniformity k80/k30 (related to Kuz-Ram n)
 Statistical evaluation; not presuming normal distribution.
 Kruskal-Wallis & Mann-Whitney U tests
6
 Measurement of crack development
 Characteristics of the bench surface; half-casts nearly
always seen
3D stereophotography
of bench face after
blasting

3D image with evaluation

profiles at 5, 10 and 15
cm height 7
 Evaluation profiles
 Profiles between holes evaluated, flanks on both sides not

y:x scale 1:1

with without
flanks flanks

y:x scale 13.8:1 y:x scale 11.5:1

8
 Measures of unevenness and roughness
 Back break DMean [mm]
 mean distance of individual data points di to reference line
 measure of the broken out volume, useful
n

 d d
i 2
i
D Mean d  
n n

 Surface roughness SNorm [-]

 normalized slope inclination of individual contour sections at xi
 measure of micro-roughness of evaluation profile, not useful
d i n

 si  x  x  xi | d i  d i 1 |
S Norm   i
 i 2
l l xmax  xmin 9
 Crack detection with dye-penetrant spray
 Tracing the cracks created at the top of the testing
block after every blast 2014
Top surface after
application of cleaner,
dye and developer

AutoCAD image after

photography, crack tracing,
import and crack family ID
determination 10
 Crack detection with dye-penetrant spray
 Same procedure inside pried out block remnants after
blasting of three (four) rows; crack detection on surfaces
of cut slices made 2013 and 2014 (Juan Navarro, UPM)
4 cm Slice 1
4,5 cm Slice 2
4,5 cm Slice 3
4,5 cm
Slice 4
3 cm
Slice 5

11
 Crack detection with dye-penetrant spray

3D CAD model:

12
 Crack detection with dye-penetrant spray
 Definition of 10 crack families and MCD/MCID
 Total number of cracks and cracks per family
 Mean no of Cracks in 2x2 cm squares = Density (MCD)
 Mean Crack Intersection Density (MCID), 2x2 squares

Crack families 1-10 ´ Crack pattern

MCD contour map

13
RQ1: Is the delay-time influencing the fragmentation and
back break in specimens with given pre-conditioning?
Yes, to some extent, for back break:
 Back break behind 2nd row shots
is not significantly different from
that behind 1st row shots
 Longer delays produced larger
backbreak behind 1st and 2nd row
shots
 3rd row shots produced
significantly less back break and
in general a more even surface
14
RQ1: Is the delay-time influencing the fragmentation and
back break in specimens with given pre-conditioning?

Yes, to some extent, for

fragmentation:
 With the shortest delays,
0 or 28 s, the 2nd and 3rd
row blasts produced a
coarser fragmentation
than the same rows shot
with 73 and 140 s

15
 RQ2: How far does the pre-conditioning by the 1st row
blasts reach?
 The fragmentation of the 3rd rows seems to be independent
of the pre-conditioning by 1st row blast
 The backbreak and the cracks created behind the 3rd row
depend on the pre-conditioning.

Cracks Backbreak
created
behind
3rd row

16
RQ3: How many rows have to be blasted before the pre-
conditioning becomes constant?
 Delayed 1st row blasts generally
produced coarser fragmentation
than 2nd row shots
 When the 3rd row was blasted with
non-zero delay, the fragmentation
was finer than in the 2nd row
 The fragmentation of the 3rd and
4th rows was essentially the same*
 If any row was shot simultaneously,
the fragmentation did not get finer
with increasing row number *Small number of specimens
makes conclusions unsure 17
RQ4: How is the delay-time influencing the cracks created?

 Crack families “CB 80-30” and “Parallel” were influenced by

chosen delay-time while the other families were not.

 The damage in terms of total cracks and mean crack density

(MCD), showed that for longer delay-times more damage
behind the 3rd row was generated

Longest delay
(73 µs) created
largest number
of cracks
18
 Source of material presented in paper:
Schimek, Peter, 2015.
Doctoral Thesis in preparation:
Improvement of fragmentation by blasting:
Investigation of the influence of delay-times on the
crack development in the surrounding rock, the
characteristics of the blasted bench face and the
fragmentation of the further rows
Chair of Mining Engineering and Mineral Economics,
Montan-universitaet Leoben, Austria.

Montanuniversitaet Leoben | Chair of Mining Engineering and Mineral Economics | Department of Mineral Resources Engineering | 19
Franz Josef Straße 18, 8700 Leoben, Austria | www.unileoben.ac.at/bbk | Schimek/Ouchterlony/Moser | 26.08.2015
 Glück Auf!

Montanuniversitaet Leoben | Chair of Mining Engineering and Mineral Economics | Department of Mineral Resources Engineering | 20
Franz Josef Straße 18, 8700 Leoben, Austria | www.unileoben.ac.at/bbk | Schimek/Ouchterlony/Moser | 26.08.2015
 Mortar properties

Youngs Poisson's Brazilian Test P-wave S-wave

Producer modulus ratio UCS Density Strength velocity velocity
[GPa] [-] [MPa] [g/cm³] [MPa] [m/s] [m/s]
#01 Ave 25.0 0.17 62.7 2.38 4.98 3865 2330
2011 Stdev. 0.4 0.01 2.1 0.01 0.52 40 29
#02 Ave 23.1 0.11 55.5 2.28 5.67 3727 -
2012-13 Stdev. 1.0 0.02 3.9 0.03 0.30 52 -
#03 Ave 14.0 0.17 35.8 2.13 3.56 2894 1778
2014 Stdev. 0.8 0.03 4.5 0.01 0.52 38 7

21
 Methodological questions
 Different mortar producers with same recipe
 Significantly different material properties
 Significantly different blastability from cylinder shots
 Identically blasted blocks: same fragmentation and backbreak
 Only a relative comparison of results from different mortar
producers is meaningful!
 Same mortar producer
 Blastability cylinders gave comparable fragmentation data
 Identically blasted blocks: fragmentation and DMean repeatable
 SNorm values were not repeatable
 SNorm values not useful to describe roughness of the bench face 22