Mathematical and Mechanical Analysis of the Effect of Detonator Location and Its Improvement in Bench Blasting

The outcome of bench blasting significantly affects the downstream operations in mining. In bench blasting, the explosives charged in blastholes are generally cylindrically shaped and fired by the in-hole detonator. As the detonator determines the propagation of the detonation wave in the cylindrical charge, the effect of detonator location can never be ignored. In this paper, the mathematics and mechanics of the effect of detonator location was analyzed from the view of the distribution of explosion energy and blast stress field of a cylindrical charge. Then, a field blasting experiment and two numerical simulations were conducted to further display its effect on blasting outcomes. At last, the appearance of oversize boulders and rock toes in bench blasting was discussed, and an improved scheme of the detonator location was proposed to cope with these problems. Results indicate that the in-hole detonator has the capacity of adjusting the spatial distribution of explosion energy and blast stress field in the surrounding rock mass. The traditional recommendation of the bottom detonator is not always right. The optimized detonator location in bench blasting is available by properly combining the merits of traditional detonator locations. This study is of interest to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of mining.