NIOSHTIC-2 No. 20034955


A Gas Pressure-Based Drift Round Blast Design Methodology

2008

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The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), as part of a comprehensive program to improve mine safety through the widespread acceptance of careful excavation principles in drifting, have revisited standard drift round design concepts. Although the initial emphasis was on contour row design and providing improved design tools for blasting with de-coupled charges, the focus has broadened into the development of a general gas pressure-based drift round design approach. The concept of a damage radius (Rd) for a given explosive-hole-rock mass combination is introduced. With the damage radius as the basic building block, the blast holes are positioned on the face, beginning with the buffer row, to achieve the desired excavation size, shape and smoothness. The design of the contour row of holes is also performed using a pressure-based approach. The paper presents in some detail the overall approach and the required gas pressure-based design equations.

Author(s):Hustrulid-WA, Johnson-JC
Reference:MASSMIN 2008, 5th International Conference & Exhibition on Mass Mining, Lulea, Sweden, 9-11 June 2008. Schunnesson, H, Nordlund, E, eds., Lulea University of Technology, 2008 Jun; :657-669

   agpbd (PDF, 158 KB)


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Page last updated: August 26, 2010
Content Source: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Mining Division