International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

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International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmst

Evaluation and optimization of blasting approaches to reducing oversize

boulders and toes in open-pit mine
Zhendong Leng a,b,d,⇑, Yong Fan a, Qidong Gao c, Yingguo Hu d
a
College of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China
b
China Gezhouba Group Explosive Co., Ltd., Chongqing 401121, China
c
School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China
d
Yangtze River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan 430010, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A new blasting approach of combined blastholes with different diameters is proposed to solve the prob-
Received 17 August 2019 lems of oversize boulders and rock toes in open-pit mine. A non-ideal detonation model and a statistical
Received in revised form 2 November 2019 damage constitutive model are implemented in dynamic finite element analysis to investigate the forma-
Accepted 17 March 2020
tion mechanism of oversize boulders and toes. The damage distribution and evolution process of rock
Available online xxxx
blasting fragmentation is simulated, and the scheme is further optimized. Numerical analysis results
showed that pocket charges and satellite blastholes can only improve bench top fragmentation, but they
Keywords:
cannot reduce the oversize in the middle and bottom of bench as well as the toe problem. The new blast-
Rock blasting
Blasthole diameter
ing approach of combined blastholes with different diameters can effectively reduce the oversize boul-
Oversize boulders ders and toes as well as the production costs.
Rock toes Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology. This is an open
Damage distribution access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction often ignore the influence of the change of hole diameter on the
detonation performance of explosives. The correct and comprehen-
At present, drilling equipment with 200-mm hole diameter and sive understanding of the detonation process is the basis and pre-
above is widely used in large open-pit mine. The blasthole diame- requisite for the dynamic analysis of rock fragmentation [9].
ter has significant effect on rock fragmentation, since it is the pri- At present, the drill-and-blast efficiency and economic advan-
mary blast design parameter and has influence on the choice of tages of large blasthole blasting have been widely recognized in
burden, spacing, stemming length, etc. [1–3]. In order to choose civil blasting engineering field, but its shortcomings, namely, over-
the proper blasthole size for bench blasting, Dick & Olson estab- size boulders and rock toes, have also been recognized. However,
lished the relationship between the hole diameter and spacing the mechanics of rock fragmentation under large-diameter blast-
and burden parameters [4]. Eloranta pointed out that an increase hole has not yet been studied in depth, particularly the detonation
in the blasthole diameter increases the mean fragment size and mechanism of large-diameter blasthole blasting, the explosion
decreases the total drilling and blasting cost in open-pit mining [5]. energy distribution characteristics and the formation mechanism
Dhekne et al. held the view that the increase in the in-hole VoD of oversize boulders and toes. Therefore, it is of great significance
due to hole diameter increase has no effect on the generation of to optimize the drilling blasting scheme to reduce the comprehen-
oversize boulders as this increase is not substantial both in site sive cost and improve the construction efficiency.
mixed emulsion (SME) and ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO) The present study provides insight into the formation mecha-
blasts [6]. However, the in-hole VoD tests conducted by Pradhan nism of toes and oversize boulders in large-diameter blasthole
showed that the in-hole VoD of the commercial explosives bench blasting. A non-ideal detonation model and a statistical
increases with the diameter until the value of optimum diameter damage constitutive model are implemented in dynamic finite ele-
is reached [7]. Similar conclusion has also been obtained by the ment (DFEM) program to study the rock fragmentation under dif-
numerical calculations of Furtney et al. [8]. The previous researches ferent blasting approaches. Finally, a new blasting approach of
combined blastholes with different diameters is proposed to solve
the problems of oversize boulders and toes under the condition of
⇑ Corresponding author at: China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, large-diameter blasthole and expanded hole pattern.
China.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (Z. Leng), [email protected] (Y. Fan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2020.03.010
2095-2686/Ó 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: Z. Leng, Y. Fan, Q. Gao et al., Evaluation and optimization of blasting approaches to reducing oversize boulders and toes in open-
pit mine, International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2020.03.010
2 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

2. Problem description and new solution 5570 m/s when the diameter of blast hole increases from 138 to
200 mm, as shown in Fig. 5. The increase of in-hole VoD will inevi-
2.1. Oversize boulders and toes in large-diameter blasthole bench tably lead to the improvement in brisance of explosive.
blasting Ideal detonation model assumes that, on initiation, the detona-
tion wave travels away from the initiation point with a prescribed
A series of bench blasting productive tests were conducted in detonation velocity [11]. These ideal detonation models are not
Heishan coal mine in Xinjiang, China. The rock mass of the quarry suitable to simulate non-ideal explosives such as ANFO and emul-
is slightly weathered sandstone, the saturation moisture compres- sion explosives [12,13]. Thus, a careful attention is required in the
sive strength is 24–42 MPa, and the natural density is 2.41–2.69 g/ simulation of the size effect of commercial explosive. The Jones-
cm3. The blasthole diameter used in the previous blasts is 138 mm, Wilkins-Lee (JWL) equations of state (EOS) is not sufficient to cap-
and the use of small holes leads to a large number of holes and low ture the detonation of non-ideal explosives [11,14]. The Murnahan
drill-and-blast efficiency. As the blasthole diameter increases to EOS is relatively simple and only needs to determine the two
200 mm, the blasthole pattern is correspondingly enlarged, thus parameters C0 and S1 of on the unreacted Hugoniot curve, which
the drilling cost can be reduced and the construction efficiency can be used to describe the EOS of the explosive in the unreacted
can be improved. However, the large spacing and burden between zone [15].
blastholes will lead to uneven distribution of blasting energy. An improved non-ideal detonation model is performed by
Oversize boulders and toes will form in the area between the holes adopting the Murnahan EOS for the unreacted explosive, JWL
where is not sufficiently broken. The increase of stemming length EOS for its reaction products, and the three-term ignition and
also increases the risk of the oversize boulders in the upper part growth reaction rate model for the chemical reaction rate for the
of blastholes, as shown in Fig. 1. conversion of unreacted explosive to reaction products, as shown
in Fig. 6.
2.2. Approaches to reducing the oversize boulders and toes In addition, the improved non-ideal detonation model was ver-
ified by the experiment data of explosive under different charge
Excessive blast pattern parameters result in less cooperation diameters. Esen carried out a series of ANFO dynamite blasting
between blastholes while the rock mass between multiple holes experiments without constraining conditions and measuring the
cannot be sufficiently broken because of the uneven distribution VoD of explosives with different diameters [16]. Various parame-
of explosion energy, as shown in Fig. 2. By the way, when the hole ters fitted to the experimental data are given in Table 1. The results
space and burden are too large, the explosion energy cannot effec- of numerical simulation agree well with the experiment data
tively overcome the strong confinement in the hole bottom, result- (Fig. 7). The maximum error is 12.5% and the error of the absolute
ing in the generation of hard ridge protrudes above the bench floor. value is 7.7%, proving that the non-ideal detonation model can
There are several traditional approaches to reduce the oversize reflect the effects of charge diameters on blasting.
boulders on the top, among which the pocket charges or stab holes
are the most widely used methods. The oversize on the top of the
muckpile can be taken care of by the following actions: (1) placing 4. A statistical damage constitutive model for rock mass
pocket charges of high VoD explosives in the stemming portion
(Fig. 3a), and (2) drilling satellite/stab holes between the produc- Natural defects and initial fractures are inevitable in the rock
tion holes (Fig. 3b). Although those two approaches can effectively mass as a kind of geological material. By introducing the statistical
improve the bench top fragmentation with additional charges, they strength theory into continuum damage theory, Krajcinovic & Silva
cannot reduce the oversize in the bottom as well as the toe prob- proposed a simple but efficient damage model [17]. In this damage
lem. Therefore, a new blasting scheme with combined blastholes model, rock materials are assumed to be composed of a series of
with different diameters is proposed to solve the problems of over- tiny elements. Each element remains completely elastic until it
size boulders and toes under the condition of large-diameter blast- ruptures when the force reaches its rupture strength [18]. Many
hole and expanded blast pattern (Fig. 3c). experimental and numerical studies show that rock subjected to
explosion pressure or stress redistribution is fractured in tension
or compression-shear mode [19]. Since the stress state of tiny ele-
3. Simulation of effect of charge diameter on detonation
ments of rock mass reflects the danger degree of tiny elements, in
performance
this study, the maximum tensile stress criterion and the Mohr-
Coulomb criterion is used as the rock strength criterion in tension
It is well recognized that commercial explosives exhibit non-
and shear, respectively. Under the convention of compression pos-
ideal detonation behavior since their performance is influenced
itive, the variable F regarding the stress state can be expressed as
by the blasthole diameter and confinement [10]. A field test was
conducted in Heishan Coal in Xinjiang, China. The in-hole VoD of

r3 ; ev 6 0
a site mixed ANFO explosive under different diameters was moni- F ¼ f ðrÞ ¼ ð1Þ
tored. Also, the oversize boulders and rock toes were analyzed. The r1  r3 ð1 þ sinuÞ=ð1  sinuÞ; ev > 0
experimental procedure is summarized as Fig. 4. The test results
show that the in-hole VoD of ANFO increases from 4886 to where r1 is the maximum principal stress; r3 the minimum princi-
pal stress; u the internal frictional angle; and ev the volumetric
strain.
The damage variable (D) is defined as a ratio of the number of
already ruptured elements to the original number of elements.
 
D ¼ Nf =N ¼ 1  exp ðF=F 0 Þm ð2Þ

where Nf is the number of internal failure micro elements; N the

(a) Serious toe problems on the bench floor (b) Oversize boulders in the muckpile
total number of internal micro elements; F and F0 the distribution
variables related to the strength of rock mass; and m the shape
Fig. 1. Oversize boulders and toes in large-diameter blasthole bench blasting. parameter of Weibull distribution.

Please cite this article as: Z. Leng, Y. Fan, Q. Gao et al., Evaluation and optimization of blasting approaches to reducing oversize boulders and toes in open-
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 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

Fig. 2. Comparison of three types of blasthole pattern.

(a) With pocket charges (b) Small satellite blastholes (c) New approach

Fig. 3. Approaches to reducing the oversize boulders and toes.

Fig. 4. A schematic diagram of the experimental procedure.

(a) Blasthole of 138 mm in diameter (b) Blasthole of 200 mm in diameter

Fig. 5. Micro Trap VoD data for site mixed ANFO explosive with different diameters.

Please cite this article as: Z. Leng, Y. Fan, Q. Gao et al., Evaluation and optimization of blasting approaches to reducing oversize boulders and toes in open-
pit mine, International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2020.03.010
4 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 6. An improved non-ideal detonation model for commercial explosives.

Table 1
Non-ideal detonation parameters of explosive in the improved model.

Murnahan EOS for the JWL EOS for reaction products Three-term ignition and growth reaction rate model
unreacted explosive
n 7.0 A (GPa) 298 I (1011 ls1) 120 y 1.12
j (Mbar1) 194 B (GPa) 2.7 a 0.09 z 2.0
R1 4.5 b 0.667 G1 ((100 GPa)y ls1) 41.7
R2 1.1 c 0.667 G2 ((100 GPa)z ls1) 400
x 0.35 d 0.333 ktgmax 0.015
PCJ (GPa) 7.19 e 0.666 kG1max 0.80
E0 (MJ/m3) 4.37  103 g 1.0 kG2min 0
x 7.0

where Dt is the damage variable in tension mode; and Dc the dam-

age variable in compression-shear mode. The above rock damage
model involves four necessary parameters of Weibull distribution:
shear damage parameters F0c and mc, and tensile damage parame-
ters F0t and mt. According to Cao et al., F0t and F0c represents the
average tensile strength and compressive strength of macroscopic
rock, respectively [20].
In the numerical calculation, first, the Mohr-Coulomb criterion
is used to determine whether compressive shear failure occurs or
not. If not, then the maximum tensile stress criterion is used to
Fig. 7. Comparison of numerical result and experiment data under different charge
diameters. determine whether tensile failure occurs in the rock mass. Accord-
ingly, corresponding damage variables are selected according to
Taking Eq. (2) into Eq. (1), the damage variables in tension or Eqs. (3) and (4).
compression-shear mode can be obtained by Eqs. (3) and (4), Fragmentation of the local rock mass is assumed to occur over a
respectively. small-time period at the beginning when the damage variable
  reaches a threshold value D = Dt [21]. According to Liu et al., the
Dt ¼ 1  exp ðr3 =F 0t Þmt ð3Þ damage threshold of critical breakage rock mass ranges from
 0.75 to 0.85 [22]. When the damage variable exceeds the threshold
m 
Dc ¼ 1  exp ðr1 =F 0c  ðð1 þ sinuÞ=ð1  sinuÞÞ  ðr3 =F 0c ÞÞ c Dt, the rock mass will be broken into pieces. In this paper, the dam-
ð4Þ age threshold Dt is taken as 0.8.

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 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx 5

5. Comparison of blasting results with different hole layout A small space to burden ratio may result in an excessive super-
schemes position of the stress waves between adjacent holes, resulting in a
waste of explosion energy. Meanwhile excessive space to burden
5.1. Numerical model and material parameters ratio may cause incomplete fragmentation between adjacent holes
and result in a lot of oversize boulders and toes.
In the present paper, several models are built to study the char-
acteristics of energy distribution and the formation mechanism of 5.2.3. Case 3 – Small pocket charges in the stemming
oversize boulders and rock toes. It aims to find an effective way to When blast pattern is large in a hard rock, some additional
solve the problems of oversize boulders and rock toes under the small charges can be used together with the main blasting charges
condition of large-diameter blasthole and hole pattern. Therefore, to improve the bench top fragmentation. Small pocket charges of
the non-ideal detonation model and statistical dynamic damage high energy explosives are placed in the stemming portion
model mentioned above are implemented in dynamic finite ele- (Fig. 2a). Compared with Case 2, the 10.0 m  8.0 m pattern with
ment model (DFEM) to analyze the feasibility of new approach pocket charges yields better fragmentation than the blast of Case
with combined blastholes of U200 and U138 mm. 2, as shown in Fig. 10.
For accurate representation of wave transmission through a
DFEM model, the element size must be smaller than approximately 5.2.4. Case 4 – Small satellite blastholes between production holes
one-tenth to one-eighth of the wave length [23]. In this model, a Another method to reduce the oversize coming from the top of
graded mesh is adopted to capture the change of damage extent muckpile is drilling satellite/stab holes between the production
in the numerical model. Element sizes vary from 0.04 m near the holes, as shown in Fig. 11. The 10.0 m  8.0 m pattern with satellite
blasthole to 2.8 m in the border. The section of mesh size gives con- holes and longer stemming provides better fragmentation than the
sideration to both the calculate accuracy and calculation efficiency. blast with small pocket charges even though they have the same
Table 2 gives the drilling and blasting parameters for different powder factor.
analysis case. The bench height is 10.5 m. The blasting fragmenta- Figs. 10 and 11 indicate that hole patterns with small pocket
tion effects under different conditions are compared quantita- charges or satellite charges provide more uniform energy distribu-
tively. It should be noted that the specific charge for each case tion in the stemming region than Case 2 with only large-diameter
was kept the same. And the time delay between adjacent holes is hole.
25 ms, interval between rows is 65 ms. Table 3 shows the material
parameters for rock mass and stemming. 5.2.5. Case 5 – New approach of combined blastholes with different
diameters
5.2. Numerical analysis results of different blasting approaches Although approaches proposed in Cases 3 and 4 can effectively
improve bench top fragmentation with additional charge, it cannot
5.2.1. Case 1 – Conventional small hole layout scheme reduce the oversize in the middle and bottom of bench as well as in
The blasthole diameter used in the previous blasting is 138 mm. the toe area.
The numerical results of the analyses are shown in Fig. 8. The area Therefore, it is possible to consider the combination of holes
of D = 0.8–1.0 presents the completely broken rock. The isoline of with diameters of 138 and 200 mm, adding small holes among
Dt in bottom region represents the remaining surface on the bench the big holes (Fig. 2c). Fig. 12 shows the rock blasting damage evo-
floor. Smaller diameter holes in a reduced pattern provide uniform lution process. Numerical simulations show that combining blast-
energy distribution. The fragmentation result is quite good, and the holes with diameters of 138 and 200 mm makes the blasting effect
oversize boulder ratios and rock toes are under control. However, preferable, with a low oversize ratio and an even floor surface, as
the use of small holes leads to a large number of holes and low shown in Fig. 13. This could be attributed to the blast pattern inte-
drill-and-blast efficiency. gration of large-diameter holes and smaller diameter providing
more uniform energy distribution in the stemming region and
5.2.2. Case 2 – Large hole layout scheme toe area than Cases 2–4.
As blasthole diameter increases to 200 mm, the drilling cost can
be reduced and the construction efficiency can be improved. How- 5.3. Comparison of different cases and further improvement
ever, the numerical results show that, in Case 2, large spacing and
burden between boreholes will lead to uneven distribution of Toe ratio is an index used for evaluating the toe problem in
blasting energy. The surface rock cannot get enough explosion bench blasting.
energy to make a sufficiently breakage, resulting in oversize boul-
dtoe ¼ ðHtoe =Hbench Þ  100% ¼ ðV toe =V bench Þ  100% ð5Þ
ders on the top part of blasthole as well as the bench face and back-
ward. The toe problem on the bench floor is quite obvious, as where Htoe is the average increased height of bench floor; Vtoe the
shown in Fig. 9. Previous study showed that fragmentation and whole volume of toe remaining rock; Hbench the bench height; and
toe problems were generally encountered in massive rocks for a Vbench the bench volume.
burden to height ratio greater than 0.3 [24]. Therefore, this The volume percentage of oversize boulders in the muckpile can
approach with large hole layout scheme is obviously undesirable. be defined as

Table 2
Drilling and blasting parameters for different analysis cases.

Case Hole diameter (mm) Sub-drilling (m) Space (m) Burden (m) Hole length (m) Stemming (m)
Only U138 mm 138 1.0 6 6 11.5 4.0
Only U200 mm 200 1.5 10 8 12 4.0
Pocket charge 200 1.5 10 8 12 4.5
Satellite blastholes 200/138 1.5 10 8 12/4 4.5/1.6
Combined holes with U200 and U138 mm 200/138 1.5/1.0 10 8 12/10 5.0/3.5

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6 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 3
Material parameters for rock mass and stemming.

Material q (kg/m3) E (GPa) l C-S parameters b F0c (MPa) mc F0t (MPa) mt u (°)
1
C (s ) P
Rock 2650 20 0.23 2.5 4.0 1.0 35.2 4.0 3.0 2.5 47
Stemming 1800 9 0.30 2.5 4.0 1.0 10.0 3.2 1.0 1.5 35

(a) Three-dimensional damage distribution (b) Damage distribution in cross section A-A

Fig. 8. Damage distribution under the blasting with conventional small holes (Case 1).

(a) Three-dimensional damage distribution (b) Damage distribution in cross section A-A (c) Damage distribution in cross section B-B

Fig. 9. Damage distribution under the blasting with only U200 mm holes (Case 2).

(a) Three-dimensional damage distribution(b) Damage distribution in cross section A-A (c) Damage distribution in cross section B-B

Fig. 10. Damage distribution under the blasting with small pocket charges (Case 3).

(a) Three-dimensional damage distribution(b) Damage distribution in cross section A-A (c) Damage distribution in cross section B-B

Fig. 11. Damage distribution under the blasting with satellite holes (Case 4).

!
X
n oversize boulder. The boulder volume greater than this value is
gbo ¼ fV i jV i > V cr g=V  100% ð6Þ defined as oversize boulder, in this study, the volume threshold of
i¼1
oversize boulder is defined as 1 m3.
where gbo is the oversize ratio; Vi the volume of block size i; V the According to the above comparative analysis, drilling U138 mm
total volume of blasting excavation; and Vcr the volume threshold of holes between the U200 mm production holes can effectively

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 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

(a) First delay (b) Second delay (c) Third delay (d) Last delay

Fig. 12. Damage evolution of combined blastholes with different diameters (Case 5).

(a) Damage distribution in cross section A-A (b) Damage distribution in cross section C-C

Fig. 13. Damage distribution of combined blastholes with different diameters (Case 5).

(a) Toe ratio (b) Oversize ratio

Fig. 14. Comparison of fragmentation effect of different cases.

Fig. 16. Damage distribution under the improved design of initiation point
placement.

Fig. 15. Further improved design of initiation points placement. Simulations conducted by Liu et al. demonstrated that middle
initiation turns out to be the best mode to decrease the toes, which
increases the damage areas of the bottom and top regions and
gives a better blasting effect [25]. Therefore, the initiation points
enhance the rock fragmentation between big holes, reduce the in U138 mm holes are adjusted from the bottom to the middle-
oversize ratio, and meanwhile, significantly reduce the height of upper part. It helps to increase the explosion energy that transfers
toes on the bench floor, as shown in Fig. 14.
Although the toes height in Case 5 is slightly larger than that of
Case 1, the toe problem is effectively controlled, and the fragmen-
tation result is good in general. Thus, fragmentation results of the
method of combined blastholes with different diameters is similar
to that of the conventional scheme of small holes. Furthermore, the
new approach has obvious advantages in the cost of blasting and
drilling efficiency than Case 1 with only U138 mm holes.
(a) Fragmentation with low oversize ratio (b) Toes condition on the bench floor
To further reduce the toes on the floor and oversize boulders on
the bench top, improved design of initiation points placement is Fig. 17. Experiment result of blasting of combined blastholes with different
conducted in numerical simulation, as shown in Fig. 15. diameters.

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8 Z. Leng et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology xxx (xxxx) xxx

(a) Bench floor after blasting with only Φ200 mm holes (b) Bench floor after blasting with new approach

Fig. 18. Comparison of the relief amplitude of the bench floor in experiment.

to the top and bottom region, reducing oversize boulder ratio and References
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Please cite this article as: Z. Leng, Y. Fan, Q. Gao et al., Evaluation and optimization of blasting approaches to reducing oversize boulders and toes in open-
pit mine, International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2020.03.010