A study of investigating the relationship between blast fragmentation and ground vibrations induced by blasting

Abstract

The environmental problems arising from ground vibration has been faced and discussed frequently in various industries such as quarry, mining, civil works, shaft, tunneling, pipe line and dam construction etc. where the blasting operations are unavoidable. In bench blast design, not only the technical and economical aspects, such as block size, uniformity and cost, but also the elimination of environmental problems resulting from ground vibration and air blast should be taken into consideration. One of the fundamental requirements for being able to optimize blasting is the ability to predict fragmentation. The prediction of ground vibration components plays an important role in the minimization of the environmental complaints. This paper presents the results of ground vibration and particle size distribution measurements carried out in a quarry located on the Çatalca region in Turkey. Ground vibration components were measured for shots during bench blasting at this quarry and particle size distributions after shots. In blasting operations; ANFO is commonly used as blasting agent at the quarry. The parameters of scaled distance (charge quantity per delay and the distance between the source and the station) were recorded carefully, the ground vibration components were measured for all blast events using vibration monitor and the absolute distances between shot points and monitor stations were determined by using GPS. The method of fragmentation assessment is to obtain digital images of rock fragments and to analyze these images by using digital image processing software. In this study, Split Desktop digital image analysis software was used to determine particle size distribution. The main goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between ground vibration induced by blasting and blast fragmentation. The data obtained at this quarry were gathered together to represent the region and analyzed statistically. At the end of statistical evaluation of these data, an empirical relationship with a reasonable correlation coefficient was established between peak particle velocity, scaled distance and particle size distribution. © 2009 All Rights Reserved by the International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM.