Intelligence Prediction of Some Selected Environmental Issues of Blasting: A Review

Background: Blasting is commonly used for loosening hard rock during excavation for generating the desired rock fragmentation required for optimizing the productivity of downstream operations. The environmental impacts resulting from such blasting operations include the generation of flyrock, ground vibrations, air over pressure (AOp) and rock fragmentation. Objective: The purpose of this research is to evaluate the suitability of different computational techniques for the prediction of these environmental effects and to determine the key factors which contribute to each of these effects. This paper also identifies future research needs for the prediction of the environmental effects of blasting operations in hard rock. Methods: The various computational techniques utilized by the researchers in predicting blasting environmental issues such as artificial neural network (ANN), fuzzy interface system (FIS), imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO), were reviewed. Results: The results indicated that ANN, FIS and ANN-ICA were the best models for prediction of flyrock distance. FIS model was the best technique for the prediction of AOp and ground vibration. On the other hand, ANN was found to be the best for the assessment of fragmentation. Conclusion and Recommendation: It can be concluded that FIS, ANN-PSO, ANN-ICA models perform better than ANN models for the prediction of environmental issues of blasting using the same database. This paper further discusses how some of these techniques can be implemented by mining engineers and blasting team members at operating mines for predicting blast performance.

A critical analysis of recent research into the prediction of flyrock and related issues resulting from surface blasting activities

SYNOPSIS Since 2010, a number of researchers have investigated the development of new models to generate accurate predictions relating to the risks from flyrock. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and analyse these recent studies in order to determine the validity of the findings as a global solution. Recent publications have proposed a wide range of potential approaches and techniques to predict or investigate flyrock. Several authors have proposed viable solutions based on assumed causative parameters and their impact as inputs. However, the results were concluded to be site-specific and could not be applied to other environments. Since the actual impact of blast design parameters on the risk of flyrock remains debatable, based on the varying assumptions made in recent research, it is important to use an objective methodology for evaluating the impact of design parameters as well as environmental considerations. The testing methodologies used to measure the actual flyrock distance are not scientific and are highly dependent on the scrutiny of the researcher. In order to present results that are objective and uncriticizable, an accurate, quantitative and objective method of measuring the travel distance of flyrock is required. Keywords: flyrock, flyrock prediction, flyrock measurement, blast safety, blast analysis, blast damage.