International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

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International Journal of Impact Engineering

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / i j i m p e n g

Simulation of bench blasting considering fragmentation

size distribution
Peng Yan a,b,*, Wangxiao Zhou c, Wenbo Lu a,b, Ming Chen a,b, Chuangbing Zhou a,b
a State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
b Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics in Hydraulic Structural Engineering Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
c China Three Gorges Corporation, Chengdu 610000, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Reasonable simulation of the bench blasting has great significance on designing of rock blasting, and the
Received 16 January 2015 proper consideration of blasting fragmentation size has strong influence on the simulation accuracy. This
Received in revised form 13 July 2015 paper presents a new approach based on the three dimension Distinct Element Code (3DEC) method (Itasca
Accepted 29 November 2015
Consulting Group, Inc. 2003) to model the dynamic cracking and casting process of bench blasting with
Available online 8 December 2015
reasonable consideration of blasting fragmentation size. Firstly, an equivalent blasting load consisting
of the stress wave pressure and the detonation gas pressure was introduced into the 3DEC model, and
Keywords:
it was applied on the outer boundary of blast-induced crushed zone to guarantee the simulation effi-
Blasting fragmentation size
Blasting crater ciency. Then, the whole numerical model was divided into discrete blocks by several sets of artificial joints
Bench blasting to enable the rock to crack, fragment and cast, and at last form a muck-pile, and the artificial joints were
Three dimension Distinct Element Code assigned with the same mechanical parameters to rock mass itself to avoid the impact of them on stress
(3DEC) wave propagation. Different from general discrete schemes which discretize the model with uniform blocks
The Harries’ model or random balls, the discrete size adopted in this paper gradually increases with distance from the blast
source according to the Harries’ model (Harries, 1973). At last, the proposed method was examined and
verified by simulation of a blasting crater comparing to the field experiment, and then applied to explore
the casting process of bench blasting. The simulated muck-pile profile agrees well with the result pre-
dicted by the traditional ballistics theory. The simulation also indicates that the casting distance of bench
blasting increases with the bench height (H), but decreases with the burden distance (W), while the height
of muck-pile increases with both the W and H. So the muck-pile profile of bench blasting is more sen-
sitive to the W than H after consideration of rock fragmentation size, and the optimization of blasting
designs can be significantly enhanced by utilizing the full capabilities of this approach.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The bench blasting has been widely used in the mining, con-
struction of the hydropower engineering and traffic engineering all
over the world [1], and the fragmentation size distribution is an im-
portant parameter for prediction of the profile of bench blasting
muck-pile, which not only reflects the rationality of blasting design,
but also influences the transportation efficiency of rocks and mining/
excavation economic benefit directly [2].
Based on the statistics of the field tests carried out by researchers
from different countries in the past 50 years, several empirical or semi-
empirical formulae have been established for bench blasting design and
the prediction of rock fragmentation size distribution [1–4]. But the
* Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower
Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. Tel.: +86-027-
68774295; Fax: +86-027-68774295.
E-mail address: pyanwhu@whu.edu.cn (P. Yan).
application of these methods was limited for the variation of the en-
gineering geology conditions and blasting configurations. Because the
field bench blasting tests are very expensive and time consuming, the
numerical simulation method has become a powerful means for re-
searching of the muck-pile profiles of bench blasting and their
influencing factors, especially the Discrete Element Method (DEM) [5,6].
Compared with commonly used continuous numerical method (such
as the finite element method (FEM) including the LS-DYNA [7], ANSYS
(a FEM software developed by the ANSYS Inc), ABAQUS [8] and so on),
the DEM is more suitable for simulation of cracking and casting process
for its capability of modeling the large deformation, failures, motion
and rotating or dispersing of elements during blasting [5,6,9,10].
The main branches of the DEM family include the discontinu-
ous deformation analysis (DDA) developed by Shi in 1988 [11], the
particle flow code (PFC) proposed by Cundall and Strack in 1999
[12] and several kinds of the finite-discrete element method [9].
Based on the DDA code, Mortazavi and Katsananis [13] intro-
duced a dynamic blast-hole expansion model to consider the effects
of the physical properties of the intact rock, blast geometry and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2015.11.015
0734-743X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145
existing discontinuities, and the distribution and orientation of pre-
existing discontinuities. Ning et al. [14] further extended the DDA
code in the simulation of blast-induced rock mass failure by track-
ing the blast chamber volume dynamically, and an instant explosion
gas pressure was derived from the chamber volume using a simple
polytrophic gas pressure equation.
For the PFC method, the explosion was modeled as a time-
varying pressure applied at the edge of a cylindrical region 3 times
the diameter of the original borehole to account for the region of
crushed rock which would develop near the center of the detonation
[15,16].
Minchinton and Lynch [17] used the combined finite-discrete
element program MBM2D to simulate dynamic stress field devel-
opment, and crack penetration as well as the motion and stacking
of the rock fragments. The Distinct Motion Code (DMC) has also been
developed for modeling gas flow and rock motion during blasting
[18].
Although DDA and PFC and other discrete or finite-discrete
methods have achieved great success in blasting simulation, there
are also some limitations. For example, the treatment of natural joints
in DDA need to be further improved because the joints in DDA are
rigid [9]. The methods of determining the rock mechanics param-
eters in PFC and MBM2D and DMC are very complex, and it is
difficult to control the joints attitude [19]. But the discreteness of
the numerical model is an important part in discontinuous numer-
ical methods, which probably affects the simulation result [20]. The
rock mass was usually dispersed into uniform blocks in common
blasting simulation models, as there are no appropriate methods
for determining the distribution of joints [5,6,9,10].
In addition, except for FEM and DEM, all kinds of extended FEMs
and mesh-free methods have also been developed for civil engi-
neering applications [21–23]. In these methods, the numerical model
is discretized by scattered set of points, which can allow interpo-
lation of field variables to be accomplished at a global level without
meshes [24]. These methods are ideal for simulation of fracture prob-
lems and large deformation problems, but much higher CPU time
than the FEMs should be consumed [22–26].
The 3DEC is also a numerical program based on the DEM [9,27].
Compared with the DDA, PFC and mesh-free methods, the 3DEC is
more flexible in numerical model discreteness and has a strong ad-
vantage to simulate deformation and failure of jointed rock mass
[19]. The 3DEC has been widely used to study blast wave propa-
gation in jointed rock masses [28,29], but it has not been fully explored
for simulation of formation of blasting muck-pile and its profile.
In this paper, an equivalent blasting load considering the stress
wave pressure as well as the quasi-static load of detonation gas was
introduced into the 3DEC model, and it was applied on the outer
boundary of blast-induced crushed zone to improve the simula-
tion efficiency. The numerical model is divided into discrete blocks
by several sets of artificial joints with the same mechanical param-
eters to the rock mass itself, and the discrete size gradually increases
from the blast source to faraway according to the theory of Harries
on the distribution of blasting fragmentation sizes [30]. The pro-
posed discrete method was verified by simulating the rock cracking
and casting process of a blasting carter, and the results are in good
agreement with the field test. Then the method was adopted to sim-
ulate the bench blasting, and the mimetic muck-pile and the
characteristic parameters of the profiles are investigated in this paper.
2. Blasting simulation with the 3DEC
2.1. Strategy of blasting simulation with the 3DEC
The rock mass is modeled as an assemblage of 3D deformable
blocks in 3DEC, and the boundaries of these blocks are regarded as
the discontinuities, which can be either natural joints or artificial
133
joints that do not exist in the real geometry. Under the action of
blasting load, the rock mass will be fragmented into individual block
along their boundaries to form a muck-pile at last. So, there are two
main strategies need to be adopted for blasting simulation with the
3DEC code:
(1) The equivalent blasting load should be introduced into the
model to guarantee and increase the simulation accuracy. It
was applied on the inner boundary of the blasting-induced
fracturing zone (or outer boundary of the blasting crushed
zone) to ignore the complicated process of explosive deto-
nation and rock crushing to save computing resources and
to improve calculation efficiency further. This simplification
method has been proved to be feasible to model the dynamic
response of the rock mass subjected to blasting load by indoor
experiments and field monitoring [31], and the specific process
of calculating the equivalent blasting load will be described
in the Section 2.2 subsequently.
(2) In order to give full play to the advantages of the 3DEC
method, the numerical model should be divided into dis-
crete blocks by several sets of artificial joints to enable the
large deformation, fracturing, rotation, and casting of rock
blocks during blasting simulation. The rock blasting frag-
mentation size also can be considered by adopting a special
fragmentation size distribution model. Then, the muck-pile
accumulation of blocks can be reasonably reproduced nu-
merically. The mechanical parameters of the artificial joints
are assigned to be the same with the rock mass itself,
and its influence on wave propagation will be discussed in
Section 2.3.
Obviously, the most important input parameters for bench blast-
ing simulation, the equivalent blasting load and its time history, and
the existence of artificial joints all have strong influence on the sim-
ulation results. The research of Vu-Bac et al. [32,33] indicated that
the influence of the several critical parameters on the whole per-
formance of simulated material should be carefully examined and
assessed. So, a numerical experiment and a field test have been con-
ducted to investigate the influence and to verify the input parameters.
2.2. The equivalent blasting load
2.2.1. Detonation process
In order to simulate the casting process of bench blasting with
the 3DEC, the equivalent blasting load should be introduced into
the model for no explosive material can be specified in this soft-
ware. So, the explosive detonation process should be briefly reviewed
first.
During rock blasting, after the detonation of explosive, both the
exploding-induced shock wave and sustaining pressure of detona-
tion gases are exerted immediately on the wall of blast hole. The
pressure is much higher than the rock mass strength, thus a thin
crushed zone (as shown in Fig. 1) is developed around the blast hole,
in which the rock mass has been extensively broken and behaves
like a fluid [34]. When the shock wave passes through the crushed
zone, most energy is consumed on rock fragmentation, and then
it converts to the less destructive stress wave. As the stress wave
and the permeation of gases at high pressure encourage the initi-
ation and propagation of radial cracks, a fractured zone is formed
outside the crushed zone [35]. With further attenuation, the stress
wave converts to the seismic wave. The seismic wave could not cause
rock failure, but only lead to elastic vibration of the rock until the
energy is absorbed completely [36].
Because the main purpose of the simulation carried out in this
paper focuses on the blast-induced casting of rock fragmentation
and formation of muck-pile, the blast-induced crushing process can
134 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

2.2.3. Pressure on the borehole wall and its attenuation

The major difficulty involved in the exploration of blasting load
may be that the complete experimental observations are rather dif-
ficult to achieve, and the accuracy highly depends on the monitoring
conditions. So, the semi-empirical theory, referred as the Jones–
Wilkins–Lee (JWL) equation of state for detonation products, is
normally used to describe it due to their simple forms [42,43], and
a simulated blasting load versus time based on this theory was in-
troduced by Lu et al. [31] to consider the quasi-static load of
detonation gases in addition to the stress wave pressure, as shown
in Fig. 2.
In order to use this load during numerical simulation in this paper,
the mimetic load should be simplified to the triangular load func-
tion PD(t) (see Fig. 2) [44], and its govern equations are given in Eqs.
(3) and (4). Although the triangular blasting load has also been rec-
ommended and used in considerable researches and was proved to
be a reasonable simplification of blasting load, the action of deto-
nation gas has not been considered properly. According to the result
Fig. 1. Crushed zone and fractured zone around borehole in infinite medium.
of Lu et al. [44], the rising time of this blasting load (tr,) and the total
action time (tb) should be selected as 1 ms and 8 ms respectively
for reasonably considering the action of detonation gas.

be ignored to save compute time and increase simulation accura- PD (t ) = PD f (t ) (4)

cy of rock fragmentation process [31], and only the blast-induced
⎧t
cracking process should be considered carefully. Thus, the blast-
⎪⎪t r (0 ≤ t ≤ t r )
ing load should be attenuated and simplified to the outside boundary
f (t ) = ⎨ (5)
of crushed zone to avoid considering the fluid motion in it. In order ⎪ tb − t (t r ≤ t ≤ t b )
to calculate the equivalent blasting load, the extent of crushed zone ⎩⎪t b − t r
and the attenuation law shock wave should be determined first.
Based on the Chapman–Jouguet (CJ) model for the detonation
wave in a condensed explosive, the initial peak explosion pres-
2.2.2. Radius of crushed zone sure PD (as shown in Fig. 2) on the blast-hole wall for coupled charges
Many theoretical or semi-empirical models have been pro- can be calculated as [1,2]:
moted to estimate the extent of the crushing zone from the 1970s
[2], and a detailed review of these models have been conducted by ρe D 2
PD = (6)
Yilmaz and Unlu [36]. Based on the Griffith failure criterion, the (1 + γ )
radius of crushing zone rc (mm) is given by Djordjevic as [37]:
where D is the CJ detonation (or ideal detonation) velocity (m/s)
r0 and γ is the ratio of the specific heat for the detonation gases,
rc = (1)
24 (σ t )dyn PD γ = 3.0 . Subsequently, the blasting load on blast hole wall should
be equalized to the equivalent blasting load acting on the outer
where r0 is the radius of the blast hole (mm), and (σ t )dyn is the boundary of the crushed zone, so the crushed zone can be re-
dynamic tensile strength of the rock material (MPa), and PD is the garded as an equivalent blasting source to assess and model the
peak value of the detonation pressure on the borehole (MPa). cracking effect to surrounding rocks. The equivalent blasting load
Kanchibotla et al. [38] estimated the radius of crushing as a func- on the outer boundary of the crushed zone versus time can be ex-
tion of the borehole radius, the detonation pressure and the pressed as [1,2,34,35]:
unconfined dynamic compressive strength (σ c )dyn (MPa), and it was α
⎛r ⎞
given by the following relationship: PD 0 (t ) = PD (t ) ⎜ 0 ⎟ (7)
⎝ rc ⎠
PD
rc = r0 (2)
(σ c )dyn

Szuladzinski [39] calculated the radius of crushed zone through

an elastic model with an implied crushing capability and a defi-
nite cracking strength. The relationship proposed to estimate the
radius of crushing zone (mm) is as follows:

2r02ρeQ ef
rc = (3)
(σ c )dyn

where ρe is the explosive density (kg/m3) and Qef is the effective

energy of the explosive (N·m/kg) which is assumed to be 2/3 of the
heat of complete reaction (N·mk/g).
Moreover, experiments indicate that the radius of crushed zone
is about 3–7 times the borehole radius [40,41]. In this paper, a Fig. 2. The blasting load applying on blast hole wall versus time. PD is its peak value.
mediate value of 5 is selected during calculation. The tr and tb are the rising time and the total action time of blasting load respectively.
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145
Table 1
Mechanical parameters of the rock mass for stress wave propagation testing.
Parameter Rock density, Bulk modulus Shear modulus
ρm (kg/m3) of rock, Eb (GPa) of rock, Es (GPa)
Value 2700 45.8 21.2
Table 2
Mechanical parameters of the artificial joint for stress wave propagation testing.
Parameter Cohesion of Friction angel of
artificial joint, Cf (MPa) artificial joint, Ff (°)
Value 5.9 45
where r0 and rc are the radius of blast hole and the crushed zone
of single hole respectively. α is the attenuation exponent, for the
shock wave α = 2 + μ (1 − μ ) , and μ is the Poisson ratio of the rock
mass ( μ = 0.29 in this paper).
It can be seen that the peak value of the equivalent blasting load
acting on the outer boundary of crushed zone is determined by
several critical parameters: the density and detonation velocity of
explosive, the borehole radius (r0) and the crushed zone radius (rc).
For the crater blasting model shown in Fig. 2, under the condi-
tion of the radius of crushing zone is 5.0r0, the peak of equivalent
explosive pressure on the outer boundary of the crushed zone can
be calculated using Eqs. (4)–(7).
2.3. Influence of artificial joints on wave propagation
As stated above, several sets of artificial joints, which do not exist
in the real geometry, are introduced to the 3DEC model to enable
rock cracking during blasting simulation. To maintain the mechan-
ical properties of the whole rock mass, the mechanical parameters
of the artificial joints are same with the rock mass itself. More-
over, the effects of artificial joints on wave propagation in 3DEC also
need to be assessed.
To explore the effects of artificial joints on wave propagation, three
models are set with no joints, 4 parallel joints and 9 parallel joints
separately. The geometry of the model is shown in Fig. 3. The length
of the model in the x-direction is 50 m, and the thickness and the
height are both 5 m.
A triangular shape stress wave, which is similar to the equiva-
lent blasting load adopted in the following text (see Fig. 2), is chosen
to test the model. The peak value of the stress wave is assigned as
42.0 MPa (about a half of the overall rock mass strength), and the
rising time (tr) and the total action duration (tb) of this stress wave
Fig. 3. Numerical model for exploring effects of joints on wave propagation.
135
Cohesion of Friction angel Tensile strength Poisson’s rate, μ
rock, Cm (MPa) of rock, Fm (°) of rock, (σ t )dyn (MPa)
5.9 45 2.7 0.29
Tensile strength of artificial Normal stiffness of Shear stiffness of
joint, (σ ft )dyn (MPa) joint, Efb (GPa/m) joint, Efs (GPa/m)
2.7 45.8 21.2
load are 1 ms and 8 ms respectively. The mechanical parameters
of the rock mass and artificial joints are given in Table 1 and Table 2
respectively. These parameters are obtained from a field test [45],
which will be presented in Section 3.2.
The stress wave load is applied to the left boundary, while other
faces are set as no-reflection boundaries. Two measurement points
are located at two sides and the middle to record the stress history.
On the other hand, supposing that there is no damping in rock
medium, so an elastic wave can be obtained to propagate through
the rock bar without attenuation caused by rock itself. Fig. 4 shows
the normal stress histories at the three measurement points.
It is shown in Fig. 4 that the artificial joints, which have the same
mechanical parameters with the rock mass itself, seem to have little
influence on the three most important parameters for blasting sim-
ulation: the loading rate, peak value and total acting duration of the
stress wave. But some impacts have been found on the propagat-
ing velocity of stress wave. The arriving time of the peak value of
stress wave has been delayed by about 0.1 ms for every artificial
joint, and it covers about 0.8% of the total acting duration (about
13 ms) of the whole stress wave. The simulation results coincide
with the conclusion that transmission coefficient will increase to
1 (means the stress wave completely passes the joints) when stiff-
ness of the artificial joints are great enough [46]. So, it can be
concluded that the influence of artificial joints on stress wave prop-
agation is very small, and it nearly does not influence the simulation
accuracy.
Except for artificial joints, the influence of element size change
on both sides of artificial joint on stress wave is also need to be
assessed. Another two similar models are established, as shown in
Fig. 5, and all the model parameters and input parameters are the
same with simulation described above. The testing results are given
in Fig. 6.
136 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

Fig. 4. Stress waves at different measuring points, (a) Stress histories at point A, (b) Stress histories at point B, (c) Stress histories at point C.

It can be seen from Fig. 6 that the abrupt change of element size of stress wave was lightly influenced by the reflecting effect caused
on both sides of joints also seems to have little influence on the loading by element size change, and the field test described in the following
rate, peak value and total acting duration of the stress wave, which text would demonstrate that this shape change also have little impact
may determine the accuracy of bench blasting simulation. The shape on simulation of blast-induced cracking and fragmentation process.
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145 137

Fig. 5. Numerical models for exploring effects of element size change, (a) Element size reduces by 50%, (b) Element size reduces by 67%.

3. Discretization considering blasting fragment size
3.1. Discretization according to the Harries’ Blasting Model
The discrete block size has strong impaction simulation results,
so it is necessary to propose an appropriate method to determine
the spacing of artificial joints to control the fragmentation size dis-
tribution. Because the blasting process is highly complex due to the
transient detonation of explosive, the heterogeneity and anisot-
ropy of rock mass, the blast fragmentation distribution is influenced
by many parameters. It is impossible to derive an equation for pre-
diction of fragmentation distribution purely from theoretical and
mechanistic reasoning. In such situations, semi-empirical ap-
proaches incorporating case history data along with theoretical
analysis are used to develop prediction equations for complex
geotechnical processes [1,2].

Fig. 6. Simulation results of stress waves influenced by element size change, (a) Element size reduces by 50%, (b) Element size reduces by 67%.
138 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

Over the past decades, several semi-empirical models have been Table 3
developed to predict the distribution of blasting fragmentation size Crater blasting parameters.

[47]. In these models, the Harries blasting fragmentation size pre- Parameter Explosive density, Detonation Borehole Charge
diction model is one of the earliest (1973) and most widely accepted ρe (kg/m3) velocity, diameter, diameter,
D (m/s) r0 (mm) re (mm)
models in the world [1]. It is very suitable to consider rock discrete
size distribution during numerical simulation for it can determine Value 1100 4134 95 95
the fragment sizes at all distances from a borehole. During this model,
the blast hole is considered as a thick walled cylinder of rock sud-
denly filled by a gas at very high pressure by the detonation of the To apply the fragment prediction to the blasting simulation, the
explosive. This suddenly applied pressure creates a strain wave which model is divided into several zones according to the distance from
propagates through the rock, leaving the rock behind it in a strained the borehole. Then the model is discretized into blocks with the size
condition. The strain at any point around the blast hole can be Z i , which is equal with the average predicted fragment in each
calculated, and if the tensile breaking strain of the rock is known zones. For the zone i, when its area is Ai, the discretized block size
the number of cracks which will extend to a given distance can Z i can be calculated as:
be determined [30,47]. The effect of the explosion on the initial
strain K of the borehole wall is given by Harries and Mercer
Zi =
∫ L dA i
(13)
[48]: Ai
(1 − μ ) p D0
K= (8)
2(1 − 2μ ) ρv p2 + 3(1 − μ )γρm 3.2. Model verification

where p D0 is the peak value of the equivalent explosion pressure, A simulation of a crater blasting was conducted to verify the
ρm is the density of rock mass, v p is the longitudinal sound veloc- model considering the effect of fragmentation size, and it was com-
ity, μ is the Poisson’s ratio, and γ is the adiabatic exponent. pared to the field experiment carried out in the An-qing Copper Mine
Moreover, the strain ε (R ) at a distance R from the crushed annulus in china [45]. The rock lithology in the field experiment site is mainly
with radius rc is given as: diorite, and the critical parameters of the rock mass and artificial
R
joints have been given in Tables 1 and 2 (see Section 2.3). The MRB
K − β rc
ε (R ) = e (9) rock emulsion explosive was adopted during the crater blasting test,
R rc and the charge diameter is 95 mm (coupling charge). The burden
(w) varies from 0.84 to 1.47 m, and several other basic blasting pa-
where β is the absorption rate of strain wave, β and its value should
rameters are given in Table 3, and part of the experiment results
be determined by experiments. If the dynamical tensile breaking
are summarized in Table 4.
strain T is known, the number of cracks N at a distance R from the
The crater blasting of the No. 24 hole was chosen to verify the
crashed zone can be calculated from:
blasting simulation method proposed in this paper. As the spacing
ε (R ) of blasting holes is large enough, the experiment of No. 24 hole can
N= (10) be seen as the blasting in a semi-infinite medium. The numerical
T
model was shown in Fig. 7, and the left, right, and lower boundar-
The value of dynamical tensile breaking strain T can be deter- ies are set as viscous boundaries, while the upper boundary is a free
mined by blasting crater experiment. The assumption that the longest surface. According to the theoretical analysis and empirical formulae
length of a fragment is the distance between adjacent radial cracks mentioned above, the radius of crushing zone is selected as 0.25 m
has been found to give fragmentation curves in good agreement with (5 times of the borehole radius).
the blasting crater experiments [30,48], so the fragment length L
at any distance R can be calculated as: Table 4
Crater blasting results of field experiment [45]a.
2π R
L= (11)
No. Burden Volume of Apparent Blasting Remarks
N
(m) blasting depth (m) crater
From equations (9)–(11), the relationship between fragment crater (m3) radius (m)
length L and distance R is as follows: 15 0.9 0.6319 0.60 0.81 Influenced by structure face
19 1.02 1.5669 0.80 0.75 Crater shape is not good
2
⎛R⎞ 24 1.23 2.1433 0.80 1.13 Perfect blasting crater
2π ⎜ ⎟ Trc
⎝ rc ⎠ 26 1.35 1.8085 0.90 0.93 Influenced by structure face
L= ⎛R⎞
(12) 22 1.47 0.6197 0.60 0.63 Hard to be blasted
− β⎜ ⎟
⎝ rc ⎠
Ke a Revised after Zhou, et al. (2006) [45].

Fig. 7. Numerical model of crater blasting of the No. 24 hole.

 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145 139

As stated above, the triangular blasting load was applied to the Table 5
crushed zone boundary shown in Fig. 7. With the equations (4)–(7) Average values of predicted fragment sizes versus distance.

and the explosive parameters given in Table 3, the peak of the equiv- Distance from blasting source (m) 0–1.4 1.4–2.2 2.2–3.0 3.0–4.0
alent blasting load can be calculated, and the value is 77 MPa. Average fragment size (m) 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.5
According to the blasting simulation strategy given in Section
2.1, the numerical model should be divided into discrete blocks by
orthogonal joints with the same mechanical parameters to rock mass two sides are only used to receive the blasting fragmentations, so
itself. The fragment size at a distance R from the crushed zone can they are not shown in Fig. 9). Radial fractures appear around bore-
be derived with Eqs. (8)–(13), and the rock mass is divided into four hole after the detonation of the explosive, which has been observed
parts along horizontal direction according to the distance from the by considerable experiments [2,34,35]. Because of the reflected stress
borehole. The average values of predicted blasting fragment size in wave, blocks near the free surface begin to peel off, and blocks around
each section are calculated and shown in Table 5. Then the model the borehole move toward the explosion center caused by the rapid
is discretized as shown in Fig. 5. releasing of blasting force. There are many fractures around the bore-
Fig. 8 shows the simulated crater blasting process which reveals hole and a crater can be seen from the blast hole to the free surface.
the mechanism of blasting fragmentation (the two large blocks at Two inclined cracks which are propagating toward the free surface

Fig. 8. Simulated fragmentation process of crater blasting and its final pile profile, (a) t = 0.05s, (b) t = 0.7s, (c) t = 2s.
140 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145
Fig. 9. Discretized numerical model for crater blasting.
can be seen in Fig. 8a. With the further failure of rock mass, dis-
crete blocks are thrown to the maximum height and then begin to
fall back under the inertia effect. Fig. 8c shows the final blasting pile
with an obvious blasting crater at 2 s. The size of the crater is mea-
sured with a radius of 1.25 m and the apparent depth of 0.8 m.
Compared with the field experiment with the radius of 1.13 m and
the apparent depth of 0.8 m, the final muck piles are in good agree-
ment with those observed in the field.
It is also worth mentioning that the numerical model shown in
Fig. 9 is symmetrical, but the final result is slightly deviated from
symmetry. The possible reason may be that although the numeri-
cal model is symmetrical before discretizing but is slightly
unsymmetrical after being discretized by several sets of artificial
joints. Although there is a very little difference between the two parts
of the numerical model at both sides of the middle line of the model,
the simulation results may still be influence. Fortunately, the in-
fluence of this little asymmetrical discretizing on the whole blasting
cracking and fragmentation processes and the last profile of muck-
pile can be controlled within an accepted extent [14].
In addition, a comparative simulation of the crater blasting was
also carried out to investigate the effect without considering of the
fragmentation size. The geometry and mechanical parameters of rock
mass and explosive are all the same with that used in the simula-
tion presented in Fig. 9, and the only difference is that the uniformly
small element size was adopted. The simulation result is shown in
Fig. 10. It can be seen that the apparent depth and the radius of the
crater simulated using the uniformly discretizing model are sig-
nificantly larger than that considering the fragmentation size
distribution (as shown in Fig. 8). So, the simulation method pro-
posed in this paper appears to be a promising tool for investigating
various design parameters on the computer prior to testing the best
in the engineering. And the field experiment described above can
also demonstrate that this method is available in solving engineer-
ing problems.
Fig. 10. Simulated muck-pile profile with uniformly discretizing model.
4. Simulation of bench blasting
4.1. Numerical model
For large-scale open-pit excavation, the deep-hole bench blast-
ing is commonly used. As shown in Fig. 11, the typical model of single
row bench blasting is selected according to the Specifications of Ex-
cavation Blasting for Hydropower and Water Conservancy Project (DL/T
5135-2001) [49] in China. The model has a height of 8 m and a burden
distance w of 3 m. The basic blasting design parameters are shown
in Table 6, and the mechanical parameters of rock mass and arti-
ficial joints are shown in Tables 1 and 2. The equivalent blasting load
and the radius of the crushed zone where the blasting load applied
are all the same with that adopted in crater blasting simulation given
in Section 3.2.
The proposed discrete method is adopted to divide the rock-
mass with two sets of orthogonal artificial joints. The mechanical
parameters of joints are the same with the rock mass. The sizes of
discrete blocks at different distances are determined by the pre-
diction of blasting fragmentation. After calculation according to the
Harris’ blasting theory, the model can be divided into four regions
along the horizontal direction. Then the preset discrete sizes can
be calculated according to the Eqs. (8)–(13). The different sizes of
discrete blocks are shown in Table 7 and the discrete model is shown
in Fig. 12.
4.2. Simulation results
Given the above discrete model and parameters, the casting
process of bench blasting can be simulated, and the results of blast-
ing are shown in Fig. 13. The fragmenting process during rock blasting
can be divided into two phases: the stress wave action phase and
the quasi-static expansion phase caused by the gas overpressure in
the cavity of crushed zone. Because of the action of blasting load,
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145 141

Fig. 11. Simulation model of bench blasting.

cracks begin to appear in the resistance rock mass, mainly focus- direction of crack is approximately parallel to that of the free surface,
ing on the central and upper parts of the bench, as shown in Fig. 13a. which is in accord with practical situation [2].
Then, the compression stress wave reflects from the free surface
and turns into the tension stress wave tens of microseconds later.
As a result, all kinds of cracks extend, cross and coalesce to develop 4.3. Discussion
a network of fractures. Individual rock fragments are primarily
formed along these cracks which are easily visible before the onset The ballistics theory [1,2], one of the traditional theoretical pre-
movement of the bench. diction models for predicting the bench blasting profile, has been
As shown in Fig. 13b, the greatest displacement and casting ve- adopted to further verify of simulation results with 3DEC.
locity of rock fragments approximately occur at the middle of rock According to this theory, the flying trajectories (or throwing locus)
bench. In Fig. 13c and d, with further movement of the rock frag- of rocks can be determined by the initial casting velocity and the
ments, the upper and lower parts of the bench begin to separate casting angle. Based on high-speed photography observation and
because of different casting speed. As the result of the gravity, the data statistics, calculating model of the casting velocity and angel
rock fragments keep on falling and begin to pile up on the ground. has been proposed by Yu et al. [50]:
The final muck-pile profile is shown in Fig. 13e. It can be mea-
v 0 = 0.113 Q 1.35W −0.7 (14)
sured from the bench blasting simulation shown in Fig. 13e that the
maximum cast distance is 15.2 m and the height of the muck-pile
is 4.3 m. The whole process is similar to that given by Ning et al.
[14] with the DDA method.
The details near the blast-holes after blasting are given in Fig. 13f.
The connecting line of blast-holes is the approximate boundary of
blasting breakage. The rocks outside of the boundary have been all
separated from retaining rock mass and were thrown out. Some
tensile cracks can be found in the vicinity of blasting holes. The

Table 6
Blasting design parameters of the simulated bench blasting.

Parameter Diameter of Hole Hole Stemming Density of Detonation

borehole depth spacing length (m) explosive velocity
(mm) (m) (m) (kg/m3) (m/s)

Value 95 8.0 4.0 2.5 1100 4134

Table 7
Average value of predicted fragment size versus distance.

Distance (m) 0–1.5 1.5–3.0 3.0–5.0 5.0–7.0

Average fragment (m) 0.3 0.5 1.0 2.0
Fig. 12. Discrete model of bench blasting.
142 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

3
⎛ ∑ n W ij sinθij ⎞
θ = tan−1 ⎜ ni =1 ⎟ (15)
⎜⎝ ∑ W ij cosθij ⎟⎠
i =1

where Q is the explosive charge weight, W is the minimum burden

distance.
In order to calculate the casting distances of rocks at different
positions along the blasting hole, the column charge in blasting hole
should be divided into several concentrated charge parts (labeling
number i = 0 ~ m, as shown in Fig. 14). Accordingly, the rock mass
in resistance area should also be divided into several layers (label-
ing number j = 1 ~ n, as shown in Fig. 14). The W ij is the casting
distance of the jth layer of rock activated by the blasting load of the
ith concentrated charge part, and the θij is the casting angle cor-
responding to W ij . The calculation diagram and parameters have
also been shown in Fig. 14. Then the casting distances of every
assumed rock layers can be calculated and the results are shown
in Table 8. For comparing, simulation results with the 3DEC method
are also given in Table 8.
It can be seen that the simulated muck-pile height and the
maximum cast distance basically agree with that obtained from the-
oretical prediction with the ballistics theory. The difference of
maximum cast distance between the advanced model and the bal-
listics theory is less than 10%. The simulated muck pile of the
proposed model is higher than the empirical calculation, and
the reason for this difference may be that the advanced model in
the 3DEC method has considered the fragment distribution when
discretizing the rock mass [2], which is more suitable for the actual
situation.
Although considerable numerical methods have been devel-
oped to model the cracking problems, the cracking problems are
always confined in a small area or a model with small size. The key
problems are focused on the propagating, branching or coalescing
of only two or several cracks with limited length [51], and the uti-
lization of large size model for solving practical engineering problems
is also very difficult. The meshfree method presented by Rabczuk
and Belytschko [22,25] has proved to perform quite well for several
high velocity impacting problems, which is similar to rock blast-
ing to some extent, and the simulated results agree very well with
the experiment results, especially the cracking patterns. The out-
standing advantage of this method may be that the cracking process
can be really captured and fully considered.
As a contrast, the cracking process of surrounding rock after det-
onation cannot be accurately captured by the method based on the
3DEC proposed by this paper, and it may be not completely inde-
pendent with the discretizing size and directions. The most
outstanding advantage of the method proposed in this paper may
be that it can solve 3D engineering problems efficiently and reli-
ably. Although the cracking, branching or coalescing of single of
several cracks have not been fully considered, the total engineer-
ing phenomenon can be really replicated. The method is simple to
use, and it can save a lot of compute resources and time.
In conclusion, the simulation results concerning the throwing
process and the final state is reasonable, so it is feasible to use 3DEC
procedure proposed in this paper to simulate the formation of blast-
ing muck-pile, and it can help to understand the throw and blasting
pile formation process in bench blasting.

5. Determining factors of the blasting muck-pile profile

There are three main parameters for bench blasting: the bench
Fig. 13. Simulated casting process of bench blasting, (a) t = 0.5s, (b) t = 1s, (c) t = 2s,
height, burden distance and the unit explosive consumption [1,13].
(d) t = 4s, (e) t = 6s, (f) Cracks around the blast holes.
After considering the rock fragment size, the bench blasting muck-
pile mainly depends on the former two parameters (the bench height
and burden distance), while the last one (the unit explosive
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145 143

Fig. 14. Calculation diagram of the ballistics theory.

consumption) determined by rock mass structure and rock lithol- Table 10

Simulated results of muck-pile profiles under different burden distance.
ogy may mainly influence the blasting fragmentation size [1,16,38].
Because the rock fragmentation size distribution is determined by Bench height, Burden, Maximum cast Muck-pile
the Harries’ model and has been pre-set into the numerical model, H (m) W (m) distance (m) height (m)

the impacts of the bench height and burden distance on the blast- 8 2.5 3.8 15.0
ing muck-pile profile are discussed in this section. 8 3.0 4.6 15.4
8 3.5 7.1 16.5

5.1. Effects of different bench height

The bench height is an important parameter in the deep-hole surface decreased. The maximum casting distance decreases and
bench blasting design. Properly increasing of the bench height can the muck-pile height increases with the increasing of the burden
improve production efficiency and reduce cost. So it is necessary distance. So, it can be inferred that the muck-pile profile is more
to discuss effect of bench height on blasting muck-pile profile. sensitive to resistance distance than bench height.
The simulated results of the blasting muck-piles with different
bench heights and charge lengths are shown in Table 9 and Fig. 15. 6. Conclusions
The parameters of rock mass, artificial joints and blasting load are
same with that used in Section 4. The maximum casting distance This paper has presented a numerical study on the fragmenta-
and the height of the blast muck-pile both increase with the bench tion casting process of bench blasting. A new approach based on
height, which means that the properly increasing bench height can the 3DEC code was built in this paper to model the cracking and
obtain a stronger cast effect. But the increase of bench height also casting process of the crater blasting and bench blasting with con-
means the development of blasting scale and influences the mucking sideration of fragmentation size. The main conclusions are as follows:
efficiency.
(1) In order to reasonably model the blast casting process with
the 3DEC method, the rock mass should be divided into dis-
5.2. Effects of different burden distances
crete blocks by preset artificial joints which do not exist in
the real geometry. Under the action of blasting load, these
Moreover, a series of blasting simulation have also been con-
discrete blocks will be cracked and fragmented to form muck-
ducted to explore the influence of the burden distance on the muck-
pile. The impacts of mechanical parameters of the artificial
pile profiles. The simulation cases and results are both given in
joints on wave propagation during simulation with 3DEC
Table 10 and Fig. 16, and other parameters are same as before.
method was studied in this paper, and the result confirmed
The simulated cases clearly demonstrate the influence of the
that when the normal and shear stiffness of the artificial joints
burden distance on rock breakage and muck pile formation. Due to
are the same as that of rock mass, the influences of the amount
the increased inertial resistance of the burden and the numerous
and size change of artificial joints on wave propagation can
block interactions, the casting velocity of rock mass near the free
both be ignored.
(2) In order to consider the impact of rock fragmentation size on
the muck-pile profile during simulation of bench blasting, the
Table 8
Comparison of simulation results in each methods. widely accepted Harries’ model was adopted to calculate the
fragment sizes at all distances from the borehole to obtain
Model Maximum cast distance (m) Muck pile height (m)
the whole blasting fragmentation size distribution. Then the
Ballistics theory 14.8 5.2 artificial joints, which have same mechanical parameters with
3DEC considering 15.4 4.6
rock mass itself, were introduced to discrete the numerical
fragmentation size
model with increasing spacing according to the fragment size
distribution. The proposed approach was verified by a crater
blasting simulation, and the final muck pile was in good agree-
Table 9 ment with the field experiment.
Simulated results of muck-pile profiles under different bench height.
(3) After considering the rock fragmentation size during numer-
Bench Charge Stemming Maximum cast Muck-pile ical model discretization, the simulated profile of bench
height, H (m) length (m) length (m) distance (m) height (m)
blasting has been found to be consistent with the predicted
8 5.5 2.5 4.6 15.4 results of the traditional ballistics theory. The differences of
10 7.5 2.5 6.7 20.0 the maximum casting distance and muck-pile height ob-
12 9.5 2.5 7.2 25.9
tained by the two methods are both less than 10%, and the
144 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145

Fig. 15. Simulated muck piles with various bench heights, (a) Rock muck-pile profile under the bench height of 12m, (b) Comparison of each simulated muck piles with
various bench heights.

consideration of rock fragmentation size during bench blast- also studied. The casting distance of rock blocks increase with
ing simulation may be the causation of the differences. the bench height, while it decrease with the burden dis-
(4) For optimization of bench blasting design, the effects of bench tance. And the muck-pile height increase with the increase
heights and burden distances on rock muck-pile profiles are of resistance distance and bench height. The muck-pile profile

Fig. 16. Simulated muck piles with various burdens, (a) Rock muck-pile profile under the burden of 3.5m, (b) Comparison of each simulated muck piles with various burdens.
 P. Yan et al./International Journal of Impact Engineering 90 (2016) 132–145
is more sensitive to resistance distance than bench height after
consideration of rock fragmentation size. Consequently op-
timizing blasting designs can be significantly enhanced by
utilizing the full capabilities of the model.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Chinese National Programs for
Fundamental Research and Development (973 Program)
(2011CB013501), Chinese National Science Fund for Distinguished
Young Scholars (51125037), National Natural Science Foundation
of China (51179138, 51279135 and 51279146), the Science and tech-
nology promotion project of MWR (Ministry of Water Resources)
of China (TG1522). The authors wish to express their thanks to all
supporters.
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