Professional Documents
Culture Documents
blast performance!
There are myriad qualitative blast design rules
that influence the geometry of a design
The rock mass has little prominence in most Diameter Burden
correctly. 40%
Frequency
30%
0%
5% 10%
0% 0%
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 >20 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 >20
Fracture Frequency Fracture Frequency
20
15
10
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Depth - m
Data Acquisition
Data acquisition techniques are required that are:
Less dependent on personal effort
Remote
Capture variability as well as spot values
Examples of emerging technologies for this purpose include:
Blast hole drill monitoring
Photogrammetry and laser based survey and mapping techniques.
Down-hole and surface geophysics
SMCS
Remote Structural Mapping
Systems work, but current
developments focus on making
the process less technically
demanding in both the field and
office.
Michaux developed a
crushing test
procedure to
characterise this fine
breakage behaviour
Model extended to cover dust
Fines from inherent clays
Cerro Colorado mine in Chile had
excessive fines in their copper heap
leach
Clay minerals were bound within the
rock matrix and liberated with rock
breakage
Dean David Index (DDI) developed
from a specific crushing test to quantify
the clay generated during blasting
DDI was incorporated into the
fragmentation and crushing models to
guide changes to practice to limit fines
generation.
Conclusions
Best fragmentation model is one formulated to specifically address
the problem being studied
Essential that the rock mass properties used are consistent with the
underlying assumptions relied on by the model
Rock mass data needs to be shared between disciplines
Important to adequately account for variability
All models need to be calibrated and checked for reality
Established models can be extended to account for properties or
mechanisms not usually addressed.