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By Robert Hopler

Your petitioner further alleges that at various times, to wit, from 1872 until June 30, 1895, during the existence of the combination and conspiracy in restraint of trade among the various States herein- before described, there were organized under the laws of various of the several States of the Union various corporations having for their object the manufacture and shipment and sale of a high explosive commonly known as dynamite, which said explosive is commonly used for the same purposes as those for which blasting powder is used;

Jan 1, 2013

By Doss Brittain

The term ground breaking is taken to include the process of so loosening the ground as to enable it to be readily loaded into buckets or cars and hoisted from the shaft or drift. In the Joplin district are encountered two varieties of ground, the hard and the soft. Hard ground consists of massively bedded rock requiring heavy blasting to loosen it. Such ground is to be found throughout the district in the same localities as the soft ground but more extensively, even to the exclusion of the appearance of soft ground in the sheet formation in the vicinity of Webb City. The Yellow Dog Mine at Webb City and the Grace mine on the Granby land at Joplin furnish well known examples of hardground mining which has become the most extensive in the district.

Jan 1, 2008

By George Harrison

A great many labor leaders and others advocate shot-firers as the acme of relief for all the dangers connected with solid shooting, and where large quantities of powder are used in one blast in coal mines. Legislative bodies in several mining States have enacted laws providing for shot-firers in mines under such circumstances, the blasting to be done at night after the miners have left the mine. With all due respect to the opinions and honesty of purpose of these advocates of shot-firers, it is evident that a great many of them are not considering this important question in the broad sense it deserves and should be considered.

Jan 1, 2008

By Robert Hopler

THIS paper deals specifically with heading-driving as distinguished from the broader term tunnel-driving. A heading is a pilot or path-finder for the main tunnel. Some headings are complete tunnels in themselves; that is, conditions at times warrant driving a heading the full diameter of the proposed tunnel. A tunnel 10 ft. in diameter might be driven to advantage through a single heading, provided the nature of the material admits, but it usually pays to drive rock tunnels of large diameter through the headingand-bench system. Much depends upon the material, as in soft ground tunnels of much larger diameter are driven in a single heading.

Jan 1, 2010

By Robert Hopler

As a part of the depression and rectification work on the Port Morris branch of the Harlem Division of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, a short tunnel is being driven under St. Mary’s Park. The park is near 149th St. and St. Ann’s Ave., in the Borough of the Bronx, New York City.

Jan 1, 2006

By Harry Thompson

In using explosives to blast stumps from the ground in order to prepare it for farming, it is comparatively easy to place the charge under a stump having a semitaproot or a lateral system of rooting by boring or digging a hole in the earth to a point under the center of resistance and deep enough to give the desired effect.1

Jan 1, 2015

By (Journal for the Fields of Gunpowder and Explosives) Germany (1914 Issues)

RBH Note: The following items are a deviation from the usual content of these articles, but I thought they were kind of interesting from an historical point of view (other than just explosives-history historical.) The interesting things to me are the military-related products, keeping in mind that World War I didn’t start until August, 1914, and then it was kind of an accident of political alliances gone awry. Obviously companies in Germany saw it coming. Of course, all the ads also included dynamite and safety explosives for mining and tunneling as well as the military items.

Jan 1, 2015

By Roland Oliver

Detonators or blasting caps are made in several different grades of strength, because some powders require not only a greater, but a different initial detonation than others to convey their maximum energy through a whole charge, and the detonating qualities of each powder vary with changes in its physical condition––whether it be warm or cold, rigid, plastic, homogenous or otherwise.

Jan 1, 2007

By Corry Goumans

Description of Project: Drilling, Blasting and Installation of Catenary Cables. Project Owner: Rio Tinto Alcan

Jan 1, 2010

By Corry Goumans, Dan Agostino

Photo 1. Demolition work on the Pitt River Bridge. The drill crew is using the 3800 Gardner Denver Air Track to drill the holes on the Bridge turning dolphin. The barge in the background is used for support.

Jan 1, 2013

By Walter Voglauer, Elisabeth Zechmeister

Description of Project: The four photos show a chimney blasting operation in Vienna’s district of Floridsdorf on May 4 2011. The blasting was done with two types of charges. An internal charge provided a force of blast which resulted in 135 single electrical blasting caps initiated detonations on the basic ensured the straight collapse of the chimney. The preparation work was done by reserve force military engineers. The series of photos were shot by Elisabeth Zechmeister. She works in the Austrian DOD but not as a professional photographer; much more she did all activities in her spare time.

Jan 1, 2013

By Corry Goumans

The job location is at Bear Lake Hydro Project located north of the town of Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada

Jan 1, 2013

By Wood Marcum, Gary McLemore, Randall Franklin

Description of Project: Nelson Brothers/Walter Energy (Choctaw Mine) Pre-Split Wall. Walter Energy – Choctaw Mine is a multi-seam surface coal mine in Northwest Alabama.Pre-splitting is the standard procedure of the Pratt Seam, which is the top seam (186 feet deep) as shown in the photo at Choctaw Mine in Parrish, Alabama

Jan 1, 2013

By Michael Weaver, Dale Ramsey

Description of Project: The National Gateway Clearance Initiative is an improvement program to achieve a minimum of 21 feet of vertical clearance along CSX Transportation Inc’s (CSX) rail corridor so that double-stacked intermodal railcars can be transported between mid-Atlantic states and their ports to midwest markets.

Jan 1, 2014

By Corry Goumans

Photos 1 - 4 – Chris Elliott is a rock slope supervisor on a construction project east of Seattle, Washington. His job is to look after a “two man” scaling crew working on the rock bluffs some 300 feet in height along the I-90 interstate just east of the town Hyak. The Washington State Rock Engineers noticed a very large mass of unstable rock along the upper rock face and asked us to take it out. Chris is loading explosives in 1½" ” holes that are 8 to 10 feet deep by 40 feet long with 1¼” x 8” power primer on the unstable rock mass that is about 300 feet above the new road construction. I-90 runs east and west longside the new construction note the containment fence and the ship containers along the highway for protection and Lake Keechelus in the background.

Jan 1, 2014

By Geraldine Rosenthal, Gadi Yohan, Roman Benram

Description of Project: Tamar Group’s civil division was awarded a contract to implode the Sun Hotel, an abandoned 14-story building located along Bat Yam’s coastline, roughly two kilometers south of Tel Aviv, Israel. On Nov. 6, 2012, Tamar Group’s experts positioned explosives in strategic locations of the building, targeting its central pillars, which then caused the building to collapse within seconds. Tamar Group used a relatively small amount of explosives in order to generate a well-controlled blast. This is the largest scale demolition carried out in Israel to date.

Jan 1, 2014

By Byron Groen, Corry Goumans

Description of Project: Project location is at WAC Bennett Dam in Hudson’s Hope, British Columbia, Canada.

Jan 1, 2014

By Paul Worsey, Gillian Worsey

Description of Project:The basic blasting class underground lab at the Missouri S&T experimental mine in Rolla, o., shows the students how to drill, set up, load, and shoot a shot underground. In this case the shot was part of a new ramp to a second level.

Jan 1, 2014

By Ryan Redyke, Jared Redyke

The demolition of an old power plant boiler house in Parsons, Kansas calls for the use of some linear shaped charges. The steel is thick and the structure is heavy but gravity can be a blaster’s best friend. This entry did not win in a very competitive category. We thought it was worthy of coverage in the Journal of Explosives Engineering.

Jan 1, 2015

By Michael Weaver, Dale L. Ramsey

The Pinkerton Tunnel open cut project is part of the National Gateway Clearance Initiative improvement project to achieve a minimum of 21 feet of vertical clearance along CSX Transportation rail corridor so that double-stacked intermodal railcars can be transported between mid-Atlantic states and their ports to midwest markets in the U.S. This project involved drilling and blasting of 1.2 million bank cubic yards of rock over a 14 month period while maintaining rail traffic of two passenger and 38 freight trains daily. See story and photos, page 6.

Jan 1, 2015