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By W B. Gregg

The rock blasting and mining industries use a system of detonators and explosives for mining operations. Many detonators use small metal bridgewires, which are heated by passing a current through the wire, heating and igniting the pyrotechnic powder in contact with the wire. Typical bridgewires require a current of at least 3 amps, applied for a few milliseconds, for an explosive output. The semiconductor bridge (SCB), in comparison, initiates an explosive in 0.01 to 0.1 of a millisecond.

Jan 1, 1994

By Mark Abernathy

When most people think of a motor vehicle accident, the direct costs resulting from that accident, such as vehicle repair or towing charges, are generally easy to quantify. However, the indirect costs associated with an accident are often overlooked. These indirect costs can take a tremendous toll on a company in more ways than you might think.

Jan 1, 2006

By Timothy Stark

Blasters are usually strictly liable for injury or damage caused by flyrock (trespassory invasion) and blast-induced vibrations (non-trespassory invasion). The application of strict liability to non-trespassory invasions has resulted in significant litigation that has hampered the use of blasting and the blasting industry. Stark (2002) proposes that blasters should not be held strictly liable for non-trespassory invasions but should be liable only if their conduct is proven to be negligent. This change in legal standard was proposed because improvements in blasting technology over the last thirty years allow blasting to be conducted without substantial risk of harm to property and thus the amount of harm imposed by a blast can be related to the level of care exercised by the blaster. It is anticipated that a negligence standard will reduce the amount of litigation because a plaintiff will have a greater burden to overcome. To facilitate the acceptance of a negligence standard by a court of law, this paper summarizes the standard of care using the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, extensive U.S. Bureau of Mines research, and current blasting techniques, such as blasting mats. It is important for the blasting industry to promulgate a standard of care so a judge can feel confident that blasting can be routinely and systematically controlled and if the legal standard is changed from strict liability to negligence a subsequent judge or jury will be able to evaluate the level of care exercised by the blaster. This paper also suggests that the industry and/or ISEE develop and disseminate a comprehensive standard of care that courts can use to further justify a change from strict liability to negligence and evaluate the standard of care.

Jan 1, 2003

By Greg S. Williams, Richard W. Givens

This paper examines the effect of prill size consistency, internal panicle density, and oil absorbency on Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFO)-emulsion blends. By analyzing these physical properties of prill and the nature of the blending process, a mathematical model has been developed to theoretically predict blend densities. Calculated densities can now be compared to actual field densities to give an operator a basis for comparing various manufacturers’ emssions and Ammonium Nitrate (AN) during bid solicitation. The lowest priced emulsion and/or AN may not be the most economical, due to the impact of specific physical characteristics. These factors dictate the blending mechanics and resulting density yields for various mixes. The research was driven from observed ‘field’ mixing relationships and data. Ultimately, such a model can be an effective tool in evaluating blends from a cost and performance basis.

Jan 1, 1992

By Jean-Guy Levaque, Robert Ethier, Ron J. Elliot

This paper presents data gathered during a comprehensive study on the impact of improvements to fragmentation in a major Limestone quarrying operation. The full impacts of gains in fragmentation are tracked through the mucking, crushing, and grinding phases of the operation.

Jan 1, 1999

By Dale S. Preece

A Discrete element computer program named DMC @istinct Motion Code) has been developed for modeling rock blasting. This program employs explicit time integration and uses spherical or cylindrical elements which are represented as circles in 2-D. DMC calculations have been compared with measurements on bench blasts in the field with relatively good comparison. Structural rock mass characteristics have a significant impact on any blast and DMC has not, until now, included these effects. This paper discusses a recently added DMC capability for treating joints and bedding planes in bench blast simulations.

Jan 1, 1995

By Brian W. Stump

"Seismic waves from explosions can be used to characterize physical processes in and around the source. The quantification of absolute levels of ground motion is important for minimizing impact on nearby people and structures. We contrast work in characterizing seismic radiation from contained nuclear explosions with ground motions from multiple explosion quarry blasts. A physical basedunderstanding of the explosion source function allows prediction and extrapolation to new environments where experimental data may not exist."

Jan 1, 1990

By Boris Belenky, M M. Graevsky, R I. Semigin, A E. Frantov

"In the mining industry, most of stripping and rock fragmentation is performed by blasting. The academician N.V. Melnikov has projected that blasting methods would be used to crush 20% of soft rocks and 80435% of medium and hard rocks. Thus, the volume of blasting will continue to increase.This is especially true for electrical blasting, since this method has a number of well known advantages, and in some cases (e.g. for underground blasting in coal mines) it is the only acceptable method."

Jan 1, 1995

By N. Jayaraman, V. Srikant, A. Radhakrishna

Addition of a 500 MW unit to the existing units at Ramagundum Thermal Power Station requires blasting of large volumes of rock very close to sensitive installations like Turbo generator, Generator transformer and Power cycle equipments. Levelling of the areas and excavations for footings are, therefore, to be carried out cautiously. The existing sensitive installations should be protected against ground vibrations and flyrock. The paper describes the details of a few of the many blasts carried out successfully wherein the ground vibrations were restricted and flyrock was avoided.

Jan 1, 2003

By David Davison

Metafex®* is an inert material that is more energetic than explosives when activated. Because Metafex is inert until activated (a moment before use), it can profoundly change the logistics of systems and processes that require energetic materials. We have obtained positive test results for a Metafex configuration (called a flat pack) that operates at the practical voltage of ~20 kV. We describe the outcome of the testing and potential uses of the material.

Jan 1, 2006

By Ronald L. Cocklin, Vivian Patz

Blasting techniques are becoming increasingly sophisticated as the need for improving mining efficiency grows. One of the areas of blasting that has never been fully exploited, due to a lack of a control and reliability, is the initiation of explosives. Expert Explosives have taken on the challenge to not only provide an initiation system that offers control and reliability, but also provide benefits that are critical to enhanced mining productivity. These benefits can only be delivered through the medium of electronics and computer controlled systems.

Jan 1, 1995

By Thierry Bernard, Pierre M. Vuillaume, Michel Kiszlo

"In the context of its studies for the trench ministry of the environment and for the French national coal board, INERIS (the French institute for the industrial environment and hazards, formerly CERCHAR) has made a complete critical survey of the methods generally used to reduce the levels of blastingvibrations."

Jan 1, 1996

By Christian J. Sorensen, Christopher Armstrong, Andrew Matejunas

A team consisting of junior and senior mechanical engineering students at New Mexico Tech worked on the design of an explosively loaded vessel, with a maximum load of 15 grams (0.53 oz) TNT equivalent explosive. The main challenge presented was to meet the stringent sample positioning specification of 3 microns in two Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) and one degree of rotation in a third DOF. This is to accommodate precise sample placement in a tight x-ray beam, and to bring areas such as explosives/metal interfaces into magnified field-of-view photography. This presentation describes the process and design decisions to arrive at the final product presented to LANL in December 2014. Our engineering analysis techniques will be reviewed, including use of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiling & Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) Code Case for Impulse Loaded Pressure Vessels (ASME BPVC Code Case 2564-3). Also discussed will be integration of Hydrocode computer models with Finite Element Method analysis.

Jan 1, 2015

By C. M. Badeen, J. Paige, W. Evans, L. McCauley, A. Caddies, I. Alilovic, R. Turcotte, C. O. Lyogun, C. Bonner

Gear pumps are very commonly used for the pumping of AN-water based emulsion products for both handling and blast loading applications. The potential major hazardous problems likely to be encountered with these pumps are: (i) high probability of friction; (ii) possibility of product confinement in the area of the bushings; (iii); high bearing failure rate; (iv) pump running dry; (v) presence of foreign material; (vi) deadheading of pump; (vii) delamination of elastomer from steel gears. Of all these possible scenarios, the no-flow situations where the pump is running dry or deadheaded have always been recognized as the most serious ones.

Jan 1, 2015

By Tom Treleaven

Several nonelectric blast initiation systems have been developed since the mid 1970's. Until that time, most blasts were initiated either electrically with electric blasting caps or nonelectrically with detonating cord. What the development of these new systems was attempting to accomplish was to provide a system that was nondisruptive to the stemming or explosive column, but still possessed the safety and flexibility inherent in nonelectric systems.

Jan 1, 1991

By Don Bachman, Larry Heywood

Artificial release of snow avalanches, through the use of explosives, is a necessary component of safety planning and operations for ski areas throughout the Western United States, as well as in other alpine regions of the world. Climatic, meteorological and terrain factors leading to the development of avalanche conditions, in addition to release mechanisms and magnitude of the avalanche problem to ski areas will be discussed.

Jan 1, 1999

By Tristan Worsey, Nathan Rouse

Florida legislature allocated funding for the Florida State Fire Marshal to review the applicability of the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) Report of Investigations (RI) 8507 blast vibration limits with respect to Florida and its soils. The study also discusses whether the current blasting vibration limits set by statute are still appropriate, including a review of measured vibration amplitudes and frequencies, structure responses, and theoretical analyses of material strength and strains.

Jan 1, 2019

By Russell D. Melton, Gary A. Kanelos

A construction company performed blasting operations to break up limestone bedrock for excavation of residential basements. The owners of an existing residence located approximately 400 feet from the operation claimed that vibration damaged the structure and created foundation subsidence by lowering the moisture content of the foundation soils.

Jan 1, 1996

By Jack Eloranta

The winning of metals often requires fine grinding of very hard ore. The US Bureau of mines measured compressive strengths exceeding 100,000 PSI (700 MPa) in Minnesota taconites. Grinding down to 300 mesh (50 µ) is required for some fine-grained taconites. While other metal ores may not be as strong, significant grinding costs are the rule rather than the exception. One author recently reported that a 7% drop in grinding costs would fully offset a doubling of the drill and blast budget. Another author found that drill and blast costs were 13% of the costs of producing iron ore concentrate while fine crushing and grinding were over 60% of the cost of producing concentrate.

Jan 1, 2013

By Dale S. Preece, Lee M. Taylor

Accurate computer prediction of the muck pile produced by a conventional blast requires modeling of the physics that occurs during the rock motion phase of a blast. The ability to predict the motion and the subsequent muck pile can have a significant economic impact on the mining industry.

Jan 1, 1990