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By Richard R. Brochu

At the International Society ofExplosives Engineers Annual Conference held in Nashville, Tennessee in February 1995, a Seismograph Standards Committee was established. The purpose of this wmmittee was to develop objective performance specifications for vibration measurement instrumentation and field use practices. It was also understood that due to geology, temperature, and moisture in the soils, it is not possible to design and build an instrument to give ‘results which are absolutely comparable for ground vibration. It was, however, considered essential to standardize instrumentation by which vibration can be measured under closely defined conditions so that results obtained by users of seismographs are always the same ,&thin stated tolerances.

Jan 1, 1998

By Jerry Wallace

The goal: At an industrial site, sever a well pipe containing an interior obstruction in a timely, cost effective manner by using a shape-charge to cut through the casing more than 50 meters below ground surface from the outside, doing so while inside a larger pipe, without damaging the larger pipe. The problem: Pumps and retrieval tools stuck nearly 50 meters below ground surface inside a 305 mm diameter by 9.5 mm wall thickness water well casing. The well, depth of 185 meters, had to be inspected for contaminates then properly decommissioned before industrial expansion could take place overhead. The limitations: A 508 mm diameter pipe had been driven around the 305 mm pipe to a depth of 63 meters. The usable internal diameter of the larger pipe was about 480 mm while the smaller pipe had buckled at one point forming a 350 mm wide spot. The charge thickness was limited to less than one-half the difference. Additionally, water that filled the annular space between the two pipes had to be displaced for the charge to work properly. The solution: Enlist the support of the shape-charge manufacturer to design, build and test a charge to work under the conditions present, then make it work in the field.

Jan 1, 2000

By Paul Worsey, Seokbin Lim

There are two major types of shaped charges, conical and linear (Ref 1, 2). Conical shaped charges are used to perforate targets and are mainly used by the military as anti armor weapons and by the oil industry for oil well perforation. In contrast, linear shaped charges are primarily used to cut metal in the demolition industry with other uses including separating devices in the space industry. There is a large amount of material published on conical shaped charges because of the high level of defense industry research and funding, however in stark contrast there is very little published on linear shaped charges.

Jan 1, 2003

By Richard Hosley, James Daley

Every grey haired member of the explosive’s industry has said at least once, “We have to get some younger blood into our industry, I might want to retire someday.” And many a youngster who loves to see explosions has wondered how to get involved in such an exciting, yet intimidating, industry. While there are many answers to these questions, an internship program is a great answer to both

Jan 1, 2014

By Clarence R. Zink

A problem has always existed in deep and fast drilling situations such as coal overburden drilling, or when drilling with a tight annulus, such as 9 7/8" bits and 8 5/8" pipe. This problem is the difficulty experienced by blasthole bit and blasthole drill rig manufacturers to attain large jumps in bit and drill rig productivity through bit and rig design, when drilling in these specific situations. In other drilling situations, these large jumps in productivity have been easily attained.

Jan 1, 1998

By John Vynne

Too often, a mine’s operations, including drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, crushing, processing, etc., are considered independent steps, rather then a continuous process. In fact, these are interdependent operations with each step in the process having an impact on subsequent operations. If the effectiveness of the drilling and blasting operations can be improved, they will impact the entire mining process. Some of the resulting improvements include: level benches on grade; fragmentation and diggability with the result being reduced loading times; haul cycles improvements; and the crushing and milling operations will be more efficient and less energy consumed. Thunderbird refers to this as “Drill to Mill” information cycle or process. This paper focuses on two of the technological enhancements Thunderbird has added to its drill monitors that allow the mines to impact the “Drill to Mill” concept. These enhancements are: incorporating global positioning satellites into drill monitors; and radio off-loading of data.

Jan 1, 2001

By C. Pelley, S. Kelebek, P. D. Katsabanish, M. Pollanen

A series of small scale tests have been conducted to evaluate the effect of blasting on the grinding resistance of rocks. The samples consisted of homogeneous blocks of granodiorite and limestone while blasting was performed using single and multi hole configurations. Grinding resistance was evaluated using relative ball mill tests, rod mill tests and the SAG Performance Index test (SPI) developed by Minnovex. It was shown that the grinding resistance was affected by blasting. However the effect depended on the final product size. In the case of the coarse grained granodiorite, a negligible effect was observed for grinding below the natural grain size of the rock, while the fine grained limestone exhibited more significant changes, in the range of 13-16%. Grinding of granodiorite in the coarse size range indicated a general reduction of its work indices, as evidenced by the results obtained from the ball mill, the rod mill and the SPI tests.

Jan 1, 2004

By Brian Gar Wingfield

"The introduction of the QuarryMan laser profile system in 1987, along with the development of the corresponding 3-D software, gave a qualified operator pertinent information about dimensions of quarry highwalls, pattern and hole loading design, stockpile profiles, etc . . . Attributes helpful for this endeavor included surveying, computer, and blasting knowledge. Since not all operators had theseskills, a simpler model, the QuarryAce, was designed to look a t highwall dimensions in 2-D view . Al though less sophisticated than the QuarryMan instrument and its software, it is simpler to instruct in its use and has the ability to determine burdens at different depth levels . An in-house user f r i e n d l y computer program was designed to utilize QuarryAce depth vs. burden data . This program was created to enable laser and computer novices to generate information useful to the everyday blaster."

Jan 1, 1992

By Zach Ellis, Dusty Fisher

Lightning is a major concern in the explosives industry. The enormous amount of energy delivered to the Earth from a single bolt of lightning is more than capable of detonating explosives. Although explosives incidents caused by lightning strikes are rare, lightning is of great concern to blasting professionals who spend many hours working on or near loaded blast patterns.

Jan 1, 2015

By Janice K. Means

The purpose of this paper is to provide the seminar attendee with: information on pipeline construction, operation and standards to better equip him (or her) to analyze the ultimate effect of blasting stress on pipelines; an introduction to the analysis of blasting effects to pipelines using the American Gas Association analysis method; and; supplemental sources useful in the analysis of blasting effects to steel pipelines, and, in particular, on natural gas pipelines.

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 John Heilig, Patrick Andrieux

"Near-field monitoring of blast induced seismic vibrations is a practical and useful way of assessing blast field behaviour for diagnosis and optimization purposes. It is also necessary in order to provide the information from which empirical vibration prediction equations, such as the one proposed by Holmberg (11 for example, can be derived. (Strictly speaking, the “near field” extends from the blasthole itself to about one charge length away from it; however, throughout this article, “near field”will.most often refer to the outer limit of this zone, from roughly 0.75 to 1.50 charge length away.) In order to obtain reliable data, proper field monitoring techniques are of paramount importance. Once the data are properly recorded, analysis can be done either in the time domain (describing vibration amplitude vs. time) or in the frequency domain (usually describing vibration amplitude vs. frequency)."

Jan 1, 1995

By Steven A. Mathe, Seokbin Lim

Current analytical models can accurately predict the final velocity of explosively driven flyers and can somewhat predict the acceleration profile, but do little to address the deformation of the flyers. Explosive systems such as linear shaped charges and explosively formed projectiles, which can be described as multiple interacting explosively driven flyers, often involve interactions between the flyers that occur much before the flyers reach their predicted final velocity. In this regime, it is important to accurately understand both the acceleration profile and the deformation profile of the flyers, as both significantly affect the functioning of the explosive systems. Previous work proposed an analytical model to meet this need. As the expanding gas cloud of detonation products drives the flyers, rarefactions impinge upon the gas cloud from around the flyer edges, which produces a pressure difference across the back face of the flyer leading to deformation of the flyer. Previous research condensed the effects of the rarefactions into a single term, the pressure release ratio, ?, which was calculated based on hydrocode simulations of a block of explosive only and an assumption of isentropic expansion. This work intends to determine the value of ? for different explosive compounds. The results of this analysis were compared to hydrocode simulations of an open-faced sandwich configuration explosive/flyer system with an average accuracy of 15% across the tested compounds.

Jan 1, 2015

By P D. Katsabanis

According to Persson(1) steady state detonation along a cylindrical charge can be regarded as a self propagating process in which the axial compressive effect of the shock front discontinuity changes the state of the explosive so that exothermic reaction sets in with the requisite velocity.

Jan 1, 1989

By Leon Lorenzen, Victor E. Ross, Anton W. Kleingeld

"Key to successful innovation, whether at organization, industry or national level, is the alignment and utilization of resources in the most appropriate and efficient way. Innovation needs to be directed strategically, and it needs to be auditable in a systematic and integrated fashion. In the light of these considerations, this paper describes the construction and use of a topographical map of the innovation landscape of an organization. The purpose of the map is to provide a holistic view of the key factors that enable innovation (the so-called 'landmarks'), how well they are aligned to support a particular type/nature of innovation in the organization (e.g. radical vs. incremental innovation), and to identify possible gaps between actual and sought performance.The landscape covers four domains that influence innovation - the attributes of the individual, the organizational context in which he/she functions, the business environment (the market / industry in which the organization is operating) and the external environment. The significance (importance) and height (performance) of the landmarks in supporting and enabling innovation within the organization is determined by means of a self-appraisal audit. The topography of the landscape derived thus is subsequently interpreted in terms of the organization's particular innovation strategy and environmental context."

Jan 1, 2003

By Tristan Worsey, Nathan Rouse

The Florida legislature allocated funding for the Florida State Fire Marshal (FSFM) 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 Cam Thomas

The initial application for reflectorless laser technology was for profiling rock faces to determine front row burden and improve flyrock control and airblast. Over the past fifteen years a number of laser systems have been developed for general ground modeling purposes and GPS offsets, but these advances have yet to gain common acceptance in construction, mining and quarry blasting. This paper will outline a number of applications for reflectorless laser technology, including the latest method for rock face profiling, mapping, and 3-D modeling to calculate available and excavated rock volumes. Drilling deviation measurements will be presented in conjunction with rock face profiling to demonstrate how this information can be used to improve blast results. In complicated excavations, the actual quantity of rock excavated for payment purposes and the amount of overbreak can be very controversial. Procedures to calculate these volumes using laser technology will be outlined and comparisons will be made between these results and traditional techniques.

Jan 1, 2003

By Ali Kahriman, Abdulkadir Karadogan, Deniz Adiquzel, Umit Ozer, Suat Bicer, Mehmet Aksoy

This paper presents the analysis and measurements of blast-induced ground vibrations during the construction of Istanbul Kagithane – Piyalepasa – Dolapdere – Dolmabahçe highway tunnels. These tunnels known as T1 and T2 are being constructed by a joint venture group. Within the scope of the study, the particle velocities and frequencies associated with 126 shots during the advancement of the tunnels were monitored and analyzed by vibration monitors at the test site. During the statistical analysis, three different predictor equations widely used in the literature were used to predict peak particle velocity (PPV) and the results and comparison of the predictor equations are presented in this paper. Finally, the particle velocities and frequency values of all blast events were evaluated according to USBM and German DIN 4150 Norms in order to determine the damage risks of the neighboring buildings and structures.

Jan 1, 2008

By Keith Pucalik

Understanding Vibrations fr om Blasting focuses on explaining blast vibrations and their effects on people and homes while keeping an eye on the importance of the use and significance of explosives in our daily lives. Unlike many predecessors, this film will help blasting pro f e s s i o nals explain blast vibrations and address many of the layman’s most fre q u e n t l y asked questions. The film can be used in pubic hearings, given to homeowners during preblast surveys, or played at educational seminars for professionals. The film can also be used after blasting has begun and residents have already experienced vibration events.

Jan 1, 2004

By He Guangyi

Combining living examples, the paper introduces the controlled chamber standing shot of more than 3000t explosives initiated at one time with Nonel under complicated circumstances and the experience obtained to keep environment safe and favour mechanical rock cleaning.

Jan 1, 1998