Blasting

Breaking rock with controlled energy. Drill-and-blast engineering: explosives and initiation systems, bench blast design (burden, spacing, stemming, subdrill, powder factor), fragmentation prediction with the Kuz-Ram model, ground vibration and airblast control, and controlled blasting for stable walls.

• Explosives & Initiation — Explosives release chemical energy in microseconds to break rock. Learn how detonation works, common mining explosives (ANFO, emulsions, heavy ANFO, packaged products), properties (density, velocity of detonation, energy, water resistance), oxygen balance, initiation systems (detonators, boosters, electronic delays) and safe handling.
• Bench Blast Design — Designing a production blast: burden, spacing, stemming, subdrill, hole length, charge per hole, rock per hole and powder factor. Learn Konya's burden formula, standard ratios, drilling patterns (square, staggered), delay timing and the blast design sheet.
• Fragmentation — Fragment size affects every downstream step — loading, hauling, crushing and grinding. Learn the Kuz-Ram model (mean size from rock factor, powder factor, charge and explosive strength), the Rosin–Rammler size distribution, uniformity index, fragmentation measurement by image analysis, and mine-to-mill optimisation.
• Vibration & Airblast — Blasts shake the ground and air, affecting neighbours, structures and pit walls. Learn peak particle velocity (PPV), scaled distance and site laws, maximum instantaneous charge, damage and comfort limits, airblast (overpressure in dB), flyrock, and monitoring with seismographs.
• Controlled Blasting — Controlled blasting protects final walls and tunnel profiles. Learn presplitting, trim (buffer) blasting, smooth-wall and cushion blasting, decoupling and light charges, presplit spacing and charge rules, perimeter damage (half-barrel factor), and blast-induced overbreak underground.