Effect of Initiation Location within Blasthole on Blast Vibration Field and Its Mechanism

Abstract

In drill and blast, the explosive filled in each blasthole is cylindrically shaped and generally initiated by the detonator. Thus, the effect of the initiation location must be addressed, as it determines the detonation direction along the entire column explosive. In this paper, the effect of the initiation location on blast vibration field and its acting mechanism were comprehensively investigated through the theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches. The results indicate that the initiation location plays an important role in the blast vibration filed of the cylindrical charge. The underlying effect of the initiation location can be regarded as the combined results of the energy distribution and phase delay effects of the column explosive source. The behavior of the rock mass in the single-hole blasting experiment demonstrates that the explosion energy is preferentially transmitted to the forward direction of the detonation wave. The seed wave-based computation model verifies that owing to the phase delay effect, the blast vibration field of the cylindrical charge is not uniformly distributed and is strengthened at the forward direction of the detonation wave. The production blasting experiment indicates that the ground PPV under bottom initiation is 61.3%∼211.7% larger than that under top initiation. In addition, the effect of the initiation location is sensitive to the charge length L and the denotation velocity D. Meanwhile, the effect of the initiation location vanishes with distance. The present study provides valuable reference for understanding the effect of the initiation location on blast vibration in drill and blast.