A Review of the Blast Fragmentation Analysis Techniques used in Surface Mines

Abstract

Fragmentation refers to the process of breaking solid in-situ rock masses into smaller pieces during excavation or material handling operations. The fragment size distribution and degree of fragmentation within the blasted rock mass stand as a critical aspect for optimizing the efficiency of loading, transportation, crushing, and milling operations. The analysis of blast fragmentation analysis is done by several existing modern techniques which include the visual analysis method, photogrammetric method, and image analysis method, etc. In this study, all the blast fragmentation techniques are reviewed, and the advantages and disadvantages of all the methods are discussed. Along with that, a blast fragmentation analysis is conducted for the rock pile images of a blasting site collected from Dongri Buzurg Mine (MOIL), India using the image processing technique in WipFrag software. The feasibility of the blasting patterns is judged based on the uniformity coefficient (Cu) and the coefficient of gradation (Cg) which are found to be 4.47 and 0.94 respectively. The fragmentation for the muck pile is found to be uniform and well-graded for the blast site and the methodology used is found to be simple yet effective for the analysis.