Determination of Some Bench Blast Parameters Using Voronoi Diagram Concept

Abstract

In this twenty-first century surface mining activities contribute around 90% of the mineral production in our country. This milestone is achieved through the deployment of high capacity excavation machineries- earth moving machines, large hole drilling machines, etc. As these machineries involve high investment, effective utilization is a must for higher production. But their performance depends upon the fragmentation size, which in turn depends upon the Blast Design. Thus Blast design contributes a major role in reducing cost and increasing production. Due to varying geological conditions as well as rock properties, there exists multiple approaches for the design of blasting operations. Those suffer from many drawbacks as inaccurate assumptions in rock mass characteristics, rick analysis not included, inadequate data bank, etc. Veronoi design is a new method to calculate and analyze some of the parameters of bench blast. An analytical solution for row and blasthole spacing is first calculated based on explosive charge maximization. Then Voronoi diagram is generated for the blast area utilizing the reference co-ordinates of the blast holes. Charge mass of each blasthole is calculated by volume formula utilizing voronoi diagram. A code is developed for hole-by-hole initiation sequence in Microsoft visual studio considering voronoi concept. The investigation analyses the applicability of the concept in two iron ore mines