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Blasting and Fragmentation

Vol. 6, No. 2, 2012, pp. 63-72

CONTROLLING VIBRATIONS CAUSED BY


UNDERGROUND BLASTS IN LKAB MALMBERGET
MINE
Z. X. ZHANG

LKAB, 98381, Malmberget, Sweden; Zongxian.zhang@lkab.com

ABSTRACT
Ground vibrations from the blasts of the LKAB mine at the Malmberget town had
reached 18-19 mm/s from year 2000 to 2002. From 2004 to 2010 the maximum vibrations
had been reduced to 9 mm/s and most vibrations lowered to about 5 mm/s, indicating that the
technical measures used in the mine are effective in vibration control. The major measure that
has always been used in Malmberget mine is the method called Changing Initiation Sequence
(CIS in short). Another method named Dividing Ring Blasting (DRB in short) is often applied
to some special blast rings in the mine. Both methods have been proved to be successful in
vibration reduction, and they do not need any additional costs. Because of the two methods,
both maximum vibrations and average ones have been reduced by around 50% since 2004.

KEYWORDS: Blasting; Ground vibration; Underground mines; Vibration control

1. INTRODUCTION
LKAB’s Malmberget mine is a large scale underground mine that produces 16
million-ton crude iron ore per year. In order to meet the requirement for a large scale
production, a large and long blasthole is used in the mine, giving rise to much
explosive to be charged in a single hole. In addition, one of the production areas in the
mine is very close to the Malmberget town. For example, the shortest distance
between a production ring and the nearest house in the town is only 250-300 m during
a number of years. The above factors make the ground vibrations induced by
production blasts reach a high level. The maximum vibrations were up to 19 mm/s
from 2000 to 2002. Those maximum vibrations, received at the Malmberget town,
usually come from the production blasts at two drifts—No.3 and No.6 (for some
levels No.8)—on each mining level in Johannes area. This is because these two drifts
are nearest to the town, compared with other production drifts. Very seldom, do some
mistakes in blasting operation cause the high vibrations at the town. For example, a
wrong initiation plan in production cut blasting (to create a free surface and swelling
room for the first production ring in each production drift), a simultaneous initiation
of two rings close to each other, or a wrong slot drilling in the production cut blasting
may result in high vibrations. Anyway, it has been a major task for LKAB to reduce
vibrations from the two drifts No.3 and No.6 (or 8) in Malmberget for many years.
In 2002, LKAB Malmberget mine started to try a technique which can be called
Stress Wave Superposition, originally reported by Blair (1987) and Hinzen (1988) and
later by many scientists such as Hoshino et al (2000) and Yang & Lownds (2011).
The test results from the Malmberget mine indicated that by using this method the
vibrations had been reduced by 10%. But the reduction was not enough for
Malmberget’s situation and the method required regular single shot from production
blasts, meaning the disturbance to mining production could be often, and the cost
would be high. Accordingly, a new method was developed which is called Changing
Initiation Sequence in Ring Blasts (CIS). The test results with the CIS method
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Z. X. Zhang

indicated that this method was efficient in vibration reduction. In addition, the third
method, named Dividing Ring Blasting (DRB), was developed and then applied to
some particularly-large rings with a success. All of the three methods have been
reported by Zhang et al (2004) and Zhang & Naarttijärvi (2005).
Since 2004 the CIS method has been used in all of production rings in the two
drifts from which vibrations are always very high. In some special cases, the method
was modified according to the specific conditions concerning vibrations. For most
large rings the DRB method was applied so as to further reduce the vibrations. During
the whole process of vibration control, we have also found some problems or mistakes
that affect ground vibration reduction in practice. On the basis of the above
background, this paper will mainly report the results for vibration reduction by using
both the CIS and the DRB method in the Malmberget mine since 2004. We will
discuss additional measures for enhancing the vibration control in the mine on the
basis of corresponding theories and practices.

2. PRINCIPLES FOR VIBRATION REDUCTION


2.1 Basic methods
The source of ground vibrations caused by blasting is the original stress waves
that were transmitted into rock mass from detonation waves or borehole pressures.
The original stress waves propagate out of the blasting holes and further into the rock
mass in the far field. During propagation, the original stress waves are mainly
dissipated in the following forms: (1) rock fracture, damage, and fragmentation, (2)
fragment movement or throwing, (3) rock heating, friction between mineral grains
and other forms of energy consumption. Apart from these forms of energy
consumption, the remained part of the original stress waves is the ground vibration
waves or seismic waves. In order to reduce the ground vibrations caused by blasting,
basically there are four general technical methods available, as shown in Figure 1.

Inhabitable area

D
C

II

E
A Hole A
Inhabitable area
Inhabitable area

F
I III

Blasting source
B

Hole B
Fractured area
IV

Slot

H
Inhabitable area

Figure 1- General technical methods for ground vibration reduction.


Controlling Vibrations Caused by Underground 65
Blasts in Lkab Malmberget Mine

(1) To reduce the original stress waves by charging less explosive in a single
hole;
(2) To reduce the final vibration waves by making use of wave superposition;
(3) To make the vibration waves attenuated;
(4) To prevent the original stress waves from propagating into an inhabitable
area.
Figure 1 shows the above four methods for vibration reduction. The left side is
the first method by which vibrations can be reduced by taking various measures such
as employing a small hole instead of a large one if the explosives and blast parameters
are all the same in both cases. The second method is indicated in the upper part of the
figure, where two delayed waves from two holes (or decks) go together, and some
parts of the waves are overlapped. The third method is on the right side, where a
vibration wave is attenuated after it goes through a fractured area. The lower part
shows the fourth method, for example, a slot is made. As mentioned above, the
second method, i.e. the Stress Wave Superposition, was tested in Malmberget and the
vibration reduction due to this method was limited, so it was given up. The fourth
method is not considered feasible for the situation in Malmberget, so it will not be
discussed further. Therefore, we will focus on the first and third methods.
The first method consists of a number of measures such as choosing smaller
blast hole, using smaller burden, choosing a shorter blast hole, dividing one blast into
multiple blasts, avoiding simultaneous initiation, employing decoupling charge, using
air-spaced charge, and using explosive with low detonation velocity. In the
Malmberget mine, if a ring is very large, we use the DRB method to divide such a
ring into two parts in blasting. Otherwise for a normal ring, we only use the CIS
method to control vibrations. In the following we will briefly introduce them.

2.2 The CIS method


This method is based on a theoretical model of a one-dimensional elastic wave
propagating in three different materials M1, M2 and M3 (Zhang & Naarttijärvi,
2005), as shown in Figure 2. As a wave propagates from M 1 to M 2 then to M 3 and as
1 4500kg / m 3 , 3 2800kg / m 3 and C1 C3 , if the following condition is
satisfied, i.e.
2 C2 0.6 1C1 (1)

the final particle velocity and stress in M 3 will be reduced, compared with the case
where the wave directly propagate from M 1 to M 3 (or in this case we can say
M 1 M 2 ), According to Zhang & Naarttijärvi (2005). Notice that the condition
represented by formula (1) was obtained as 1 4500kg / m 3 , 3 2800kg / m 3 and
C1 C3 . For other mines, such a condition as shown in formula (1) should be
determined according to the detailed procedure by Zhang & Naarttijärvi (2005).
As stated previously, the maximum vibrations received by the Malmberget town
always come from two drifts 3 and 6 on each level of Johannes area. Both drifts stand
within two single ore bodies, and the town is located on the sides of their hanging
walls, as shown in Figure 3. The hanging walls are composed of bedrock.
A normal production ring in the two drifts is shown in Figure 3. This ring
contains 9 blastholes, and the longest hole is in the middle of the ring. Usually, such a
middle hole, i.e. the hole marked with 5th, is initiated first. Then the other holes are
initiated one by one with a delay time. In this case, the stress waves due to the blast of
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Z. X. Zhang

the hole 5th will go through the solid ore mass and solid hanging wall and finally to
the town.

Direction of wave propagation

M1 M2 M3
A B
I1 I1 I2 I2
T2 T2 T3 T3
R1 R1 R2 R2

A B C3
1 C1 2 C2 3

Figure 2- Stress wave propagation in three materials.

5th

6th 4th
Caved waste rock
Hanging wall (solid rock)
7th 3rd
City (town)
8th 1st

9th Vibrations to the city

2nd

Drift Ore body

Figure 3- The initiation sequence in the CIS method.

Now let us change the initiation sequence in the ring of Figure 3: we first
initiate a short hole numbered 1st, then do the hole numbered 2nd, hole 3rd and so on.
With this initiation sequence, as shown in Figure 3, after the first hole indicated
by“1st” in the ring is initiated, a fractured zone surrounding this hole is formed, i.e. a
certain number of cracks are produced. Then when one of the blastholes numbered 3rd
to 9th is blasted, to the direction of the town, some of the stress or vibration waves
caused by such a blasthole must traverse the fractured zone around hole “1st” (as well
as 2nd), and further pass through the hanging wall. Thus, the vibrations from all these
blastholes (3rd to 9th) can be reduced. Note that it is the blasthole numbered 1st that is
initiated first rather than the blasthole numbered 2nd. If the blasthole numbered 2nd is
initiated or blasted first, the blastholes in the nearest ring on next level (under the hole
numbered 2nd) will be broken. As a consequence, the blasting result, particularly rock
fragmentation, will be much worse. In reality, as shown in Figure 3, after blastholes
1st and 2nd are blasted, a fractured zone surrounding both 1st and 2nd hole has been
built up if the delay time between the holes is not too short. Thus, when the blastholes
numbered 3rd to 9th are blasted, the vibrations caused by them will be markedly
reduced due to the wave attenuation through the fractured zone.
Controlling Vibrations Caused by Underground 67
Blasts in Lkab Malmberget Mine

2.3 The DRB method


Sometimes, a production ring is very large, meaning that the blastholes
including the blasthole “2nd” indicated in Figure 3 are very long. In this case, the CIS
method is limited in vibration reduction. In order to effectively reduce vibrations, we
can divide a large ring blast into two or more blasts in blast operation. Thus, one
single blast with long holes can be separated into two- or multi-time blasts with short
holes. Finally, the ground vibrations can be reduced. This is called DSB method, i.e.
dividing a single blast into multi-blasts. The DSB method is introduced by Zhang &
Naarttijärvi (2005).

Section A-A
A
R1 R2 R3
4

Upper part of R2
3 5

2 6
Upper parts of rings

1 D 7
B E
C

Lower parts of rings

G
F
Lower part of R1

Drift Drift

Figure 4- Dividing a sublevel caving ring blast into two-time blasts.

We take a production ring from sublevel caving as an example. Figure 4 shows


a section of a production drift with three rings R1, R2, and R3 (left), and a production
ring (right). In a normal case, a ring is blasted once with a certain delay time between
the holes. In other words, all of the boreholes in the ring in the right side of Figure 4
are completely blasted one by one with a delay time. However, in order to reduce
ground vibrations from the blast, we separate each ring into two parts - lower part and
upper part - during blasting. In one blast, we blast the lower part of the previous ring
(the upper part had already been blasted) and the upper part of the present ring
together, as shown in Figure 4, and the former is initiated first and then the latter. All
of boreholes in each part will be initiated one by one with a delay time. The
separation of the blast operation can be made from a broken line FDG shown in the
figure.
Figure 5 indicates the initiation sequence in the DRB method combining with
the CIS method, meaning that both methods are applied together in vibration
reduction.
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Z. X. Zhang

R1 R2

Upper part of R2
10
11 9

12
D D 7
13
8
3 2
4
G G
F 5 0 F
6 1

Lower part of R1
Drift Drift

Initiation sequence from the lower part of R1 to the upper part of R2:
0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13

Figure 5- Initiation sequence in the DRB method combining with the CIS method.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION


3.1 The CIS method
Since the spring of 2004 the CIS method has been used in all of rings where
maximum vibrations often originate in the mine. For a normal ring, the charge length
of the middle hole is often twice long as that of the “1st” hole in Figure 3, so the
vibrations can be reduced by around 50% with the CIS method. The measured
vibrations (vertical particle velocity) at the Malmberget town from 2000 to 2010 are
shown in Figure 6. According to the measured results in Figure 6, the average
vibration (vertical particle velocity) is 4.89 mm/s from the September of 2000 to the
December of 2003, and the average vibration is 2.40 mm/s from the January of 2004
to the April of 2010. We can see that the average vibration reduction is about 50%.

Vertical velocity measured at Malmberget (2000-2010)


20
19 CIS method starts Simultaneous initiation of two rings
18 Mistake in open cut of JH4376 & 5258
17 Large rings with normal blasting
16 Large rings with DRB method
15
14
Vertical Velocity (mm/s)

13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
8/12/00 4/19/01 12/25/01 9/1/02 5/9/03 1/14/04 9/20/04 5/28/05 2/2/06 10/10/06 6/17/07 2/22/08 10/29/08 7/6/09 3/13/10 11/18/10
Date (M/D/Year)

Figure 6- Vibrations measured at Malmberget (2000-2010).


Controlling Vibrations Caused by Underground 69
Blasts in Lkab Malmberget Mine

The CIS method has following advantages:


It requires no additional cost;
It is easy to apply in practice since only initiation sequence needs to be
changed;
It is flexible, i.e. it can be applied together with the DRB method.

3.2 The DRB method


The DRB method was first applied to 10 large rings in a drift named JH415-6
from the end of 2003 to the beginning of 2004, as shown in Figure 6. Since then the
method has been used in the large rings on each production level in the Johannes ore
body. If the drilling plan of a large ring is well planned, the DRB method can be used
to not only reduce vibrations but also improve fragmentation and ore recovery, as
reported by Zhang and Naarttijärvi (2005). We may see that several large rings with
star-symbols in Figure 6 give rise to high vibrations over 7 mm/s in 2009 since they
were blasted as a normal ring, i.e. the DRB method was not used in the rings. After
recognised this mistake, we had applied the DRB method in the rest large rings
immediately. As a consequence, the vibrations from the rest large rings were reduced
to about 5 mm/s. Since 2010 the DRB method with electronic detonators has been
used to improve fragmentation in Malmberget mine. The first tests in a narrow ore
body have produced a good result in fragmentation and yielded higher ore extraction.
This may be reported in detail in the future.
The DRB method can improve the safety of charge operation to a certain extent,
since chargers only need charge the lower part of each production ring close to caving
waste rock. The breakage of the blastholes in the lower part of each ring caused by the
blast of upper part of the same ring is usually 1-2m long according to the tests in the
Malmberget mine. A disadvantage of the DRB is that the total charge time for one
blast (including the lower part of one ring and the upper part of next ring) is a little bit
longer than that with a normal method by which a whole ring is blasted once.

3.3 Some practical problems in vibration reduction


There are a number of factors affecting vibration reduction in practice such as
simultaneous initiation, delay time, burden, charge plan, detonator placement, etc.
Here we just discuss some of them.

(1) Simultaneous initiation


As shown in Figure 6, there are two blasts after 2004 that cause very high
vibrations marked with “simultaneous initiation of two rings” in the same production
level in Johannes ore body. Definitely, an “effective” vibration superposition occurred
in the instantaneous initiation of the two rings, making the vibrations very high.
Therefore, in order to control vibrations, an instantaneous initiation of two rings close
to each other should be avoided. Similarly, an instantaneous initiation of two
blastholes in the same ring should be also forbidden.

(2) Delay time


Rock fracture takes time in rock blasting. If a delay time between two
neighbouring blastholes is too short, the cracks initiated by the first-initiated hole will
not have enough time to propagate. In this case, the rock fracture surrounding the first
hole will be too small to cause a vibration reduction. In other words, taking the
Malmberget mine as an example, the condition 2 C2 0.6 1C1 will not be satisfied.
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Z. X. Zhang

As a consequence, the CIS method will not be effective. According to the practice in
the Malmberget mine, we have found that when a delay time between two
neighbouring holes is equal to or greater than 100 ms, the CIS method works very
well. However, as the delay time is smaller than 25 ms, it does not work. For other
mines, a proper delay time should be determined on the basis of their own parameters
in blasting and their own tests.

(3) Mistakes in open cut blast


Some mistakes in open cut blast can result in very high vibrations. The first
mistake made in Malmberget was a wrong drilling in which several boreholes are
connected with each other in some places. This made the amount of explosive in one
or more delay times increased largely. As a result, the vibrations were increased
markedly, as shown in Figure 6 where such a mistake occurred in year 2004. The
second mistake is a too short delay time between blastholes in an open cut blast. The
example for this kind of mistake is an open cut blast in year 2009 indicated in Figure
6. Obviously, such mistakes should be avoided.

4. CONCLUSIONS
The CIS method has been shown to be efficient in vibration reduction in
Malmberget mine. In a normal case or for a sublevel ring with a normal shape, the
vibrations can be reduced by around 50% if a proper delay time is used. In addition,
the CIS method requires no additional cost. In most cases, this method should be
effective if the geographical conditions concerning blasts and the place where the
vibrations must be controlled are suitable for the CIS method. In many cases
geographical conditions are suitable for this method. Sometimes, if the geographical
condition is not suitable for the method, another method for vibration reduction has to
be used. When the CIS method is employed, another method for vibration control,
such as the DRB method may be used together.
The DRB method is also an efficient method for vibration reduction. If properly
designed, the method can be also used to improve rock fragmentation and ore
extraction according to the tests in Malmberget.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Torbjörn Naarttijärvi, Karl Wikström, Carlos
Quinteiro, Anders Nordqvist, Egon Sundling, Kjell Harnesk, Bengt-Olov kristensen
and chargers in Malmberget mine for their support. The author is very grateful to the
anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

REFERENCES
Blair, D.P. (1987) The measurement, modelling and control of ground vibrations due
to blasting. In: Proceedings of the 2nd Int. Symp. On Rock Fragmentation by Blasting,
Keystone, Colorado, August 23-26, 1987, pp.88-101.

Hinzen, K.G. (1988) Modelling of blast vibrations. International Journal of Rock


Mechanics and Mining Sciences & Geomechanics Abstracts, Vol. 25:439-445.

Hoshino, T. et al. (2000) Optimum delay time interval design in delay blasting.
Fragblast—International Journal for blasting and Fragmentation, Vol. 4:139-149.
Controlling Vibrations Caused by Underground 71
Blasts in Lkab Malmberget Mine

Yang, R. & M. Lownds (2011) Modelling effect of delay scatter on peak particle
velocity of blast vibration using a multiple seed waveform vibration model. Blasting
and Fragmentation, Vol. 5(1):31-46.

Zhang, Z.X. & T. Naarttijärvi (2005) Reducing ground vibrations caused by


underground blasts in LKAB Malmberget mine. Fragblast—International Journal for
blasting and Fragmentation, Vol. 9(2):61-78.

Zhang, Z.X. et al. (2004) A feasibility study on controlling ground vibrations caused
by blasts in Malmberget underground mine. Fragblast—International Journal for
blasting and Fragmentation, Vol. 8(1):1-19.

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