Publications Details
Computer cast blast modelling
Cast blasting can be designed to utilize explosive energy effectively and economically for coal mining operations to remove overburden material. The more overburden removed by explosives, the less blasted material there is left to be transported with mechanical equipment, such as draglines and trucks. In order to optimize the percentage of rock that is cast, a higher powder factor than normal is required plus an initiation technique designed to produce a much greater degree of horizontal muck movement. This paper compares two blast models known as DMC (Distinct Motion Code) and SABREX (Scientific Approach to Breaking Rock with Explosives). DMC, applies discrete spherical elements interacted with the flow of explosive gases and the explicit time integration to track particle motion resulting from a blast. The input to this model includes multi-layer rock properties, and both loading geometry and explosives equation-of-state parameters. It enables the user to have a wide range of control over drill pattern and explosive loading design parameters. SABREX assumes that heave process is controlled by the explosive gases which determines the velocity and time of initial movement of blocks within the burden, and then tracks the motion of the blocks until they come to a rest. In order to reduce computing time, the in-flight collisions of blocks are not considered and the motion of the first row is made to limit the motion of subsequent rows. Although modelling a blast is a complex task, the DMC can perform a blast simulation in 0.5 hours on the SUN SPARCstation 10--41 while the new SABREX 3.5 produces results of a cast blast in ten seconds on a 486-PC computer. Predicted percentage of cast and face velocities from both computer codes compare well with the measured results from a full scale cast blast.