Rock Mech Rock Eng (2014) 47:13071320

DOI 10.1007/s00603-013-0475-7

ORIGINAL PAPER

Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage Between Presplit

and Smooth Blasting of High Rock Slope
Yingguo Hu Wenbo Lu Ming Chen

Peng Yan Jianhua Yang

Received: 2 April 2013 / Accepted: 28 August 2013 / Published online: 14 September 2013
Springer-Verlag Wien 2013

Abstract This paper focuses on the comparison of damage control suggestion for two blasting excavation
damage induced by smooth blasting and presplit blasting methods is proposed and verified based on the excavation
based on the excavation of high rock slope. The whole of the temporary shiplock slopes of the Three Gorges
damage process of the smooth blasting and presplit blasting Project in China.
excavation method is studied by using a cumulative
blasting damage numerical simulation technology based on Keywords High rock slope  Blast-induced damage 
the secondary development of the dynamic finite element Smooth blasting  Presplit blasting  Simulation
code LS-DYNA. The results demonstrate that, in the case
of contour blasting with the method of smooth blasting, the
List of Symbols
total damage of rock slope is a result of cumulated damage
k Sensitivity constant
induced by the production hole, buffering hole, and smooth
DC Compressive damage symbol
hole. Among the total damage, the blasting of the pro-
D Damage symbol
duction hole is the main resource, followed by the smooth
q Density
and buffering holes. For the presplit blasting, the final
sij Deviatoric stress tensor
damage of rock slope is mainly induced by presplit blasting
a Average crack radius
itself. The spatial distribution characteristics of the final
k Material constant
damage zone of two methods are compared. Two classes of
b Material constant
damage zone could be found in smooth blasting excava-
l Poissons ratio for damaged material
tion; one of them is the columnar high-degree damage zone
l Poissons ratio for undamaged material
around the slope surface and the other is the low-degree
epij Plastic strain tensor
damage zone located in the middle of the slope. But in the
case of presplit blasting, there is only the columnar high- G Shear modulus for damaged material
degree damage zone around the slope surface. Finally, a rij Stress tensor
Dt Tensile damage symbol
C Longitudinal wave velocity
ev Volumetric tensile strain
K von Mises equivalent stress
Y. Hu  W. Lu  M. Chen  P. Yan  J. Yang ry Yield stress
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Cd Crack density parameter
Engineering Science, WuHan University, WuHan 430072,
Peoples Republic of China
KIC Fracture toughness of the material
m Material constant
Y. Hu  W. Lu (&)  M. Chen  P. Yan  J. Yang Wp Plastic work
Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics in Hydraulic Structural e_vmax Maximum volumetric tensile strain rate
Engineering, Ministry of Education, WuHan University, WuHan
430072, Peoples Republic of China K Bulk modulus for damaged material
e-mail: wblu@whu.edu.cn K Bulk modulus for undamaged material

123
1308
1 Introduction
Blasting is a widely adopted technique in the mining and
construction industries. The damage process in rock blast-
ing has received considerable attention over last several
decades and its mechanism seems to be well understood
(Khandelwal and Monjezi 2013; Onederra et al. 2013;
Hamdi et al. 2011; Malmgren et al. 2007; Saiang and
Nordlund 2009; Ambrosini et al. 2002). As demonstrated in
field experiments and numerical simulation (Martino and
Chandler 2004; Park et al. 2009; Garca Bastante et al.
2012; Wang and Shukla 2010; De 2012), damage in sur-
rounding rock masses is inevitably induced by a combina-
tion of the effects of blasting load and stress redistribution.
The processes of blast-induced damage and fragmentations
around a bore hole are strongly dependent on the parameters
of the explosive detonation and the dynamic response of
rock (Bohloli and Hoven 2007; Hudson et al. 2009; Tripa-
thy and Gupta 2002; Wang et al. 2007; Zhu et al. 2007).
The capability of predicting blasting-induced damage
(BID) in the surrounding rock mass is important. However,
the investigation of rock blasting and its effects by scaled
or full-size experiments is very expensive and time-con-
suming. With the development of computer technology,
numerical methods, derived from sound mechanical prin-
ciples and validated against experimental data, indicate a
promising approach to revealing the BID. In consequence,
extensive research activities in the field of blast damages
have taken place in recent years (Saharan and Mitri 2008;
Donze et al. 1997; Ma and An 2008; Mohammadi and
Pooladi 2007; Lu et al. 2011a). Considerable efforts have
been directed towards developing discontinuum, contin-
uum, and continuumdiscontinuum constitutive models of
the rock materials (Ning et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2007; Hao
et al. 2002; Saiang 2010).
Damage is required to be minimized even in conven-
tional blasting in several situations, such as pit wall
blasting, tunnel and underground chambers excavations,
etc. For the past many years, considerable efforts have been
made to study the effect of blasting on rock damage and
also to minimize damage resulting from blasting (Rathore
Fig. 1 Excavation design and
final contour of Xiluodu high
rock slope
123
Y. Hu et al.
and Bhandari 2007; Li et al. 2011; Netherton and Stewart
2009). The worldwide practice of the excavation of large-
scale rock mass engineering shows that a reasonable
excavation sequence and the contour blasting method has a
direct effect on the excavation quality, construction sche-
dule, and excavation economy (Lu et al. 2011b; Mandal
et al. 2008; Sheng et al. 2002). The contour excavation and
damage control of high rock slope is one of the most sig-
nificant problems during the construction of rock mass
engineering, as illustrated in Fig. 1. To reduce the extent of
BID and guarantee the quality of the slope contour surface,
smooth blasting and presplit blasting excavation methods
are widely used in the contour excavation of high rock
slope. The excavation sequence of these two methods is
illustrated in Fig. 2. (The rows of production blasting
depend on the project circumstances; in the present study,
two rows was chosen as an example.)
Based on the excavation of several huge hydropower
projects in China, such as the temporary shiplock of Three
Gorges, the high rock slope of Xiluodu, the foundation of
Xiaowan arch dam, and so on, experience demonstrates
that the two methods could both obtain satisfactory effects
in most cases, but they have different damage control
mechanisms and the excavation effect is quite different in
some cases. If we want to determine the BID of the two
excavation methods, two factors must be taken into con-
sideration: the first one is the damage induced by contour
blasting (smooth blasting or presplit blasting) itself and the
second is the cumulative effect from other blasting in the
excavation zone. However, few attempts have been made
to investigate the comparison of the BID of the two
blasting methods. Until recently, there is still some lack of
knowledge about the optimization for contour blasting of
high rock slope based on the control of the BID.
In the present study, a modified blasting damage model
is implemented into the explicit finite element (FE) code
LS-DYNA. Then, the whole excavation processes of the
smooth blasting and presplit blasting methods are studied
by using a cumulative blasting damage numerical simula-
tion technology. The distribution characteristics of the BID
of the two methods are investigated and compared. Finally,
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
(a)
Initiation sequence:
Production holes Buffer holes
Smooth holes
(b)
Initiation sequence:
Production holes Buffer holes
Presplit holes
Fig. 2 Excavation sequence of two blasting excavation methods.
a Smooth blasting excavation method. b Presplit blasting excavation
method
BID control methods of two kinds of contour blasting of
high rock slope are proposed and verified based on the
excavation of the temporary shiplock slopes of the Three
Gorges Project in China.
2 Cumulative Damage Simulation Technology
and Finite Element Model
2.1 Tensile-Compressive Damage Model
Many research works have been conducted to study the
explosion-induced damage in rock mass by site monitoring
and numerical simulations. Continuum damage mechanics
is one of the methods considered appropriate to describe
the blast damage process (Grady and Kipp 1980; Taylor
et al. 1986; Yang et al. 1996; Liu and Katsabanis 1997). In
the existing blasting damage models, the damage scalar
D was defined by the extensional strain, but the compres-
sive strain-induced damage was neglected. It is known that
a compressive damage zone was inevitably formed by the
shock wave near the blast hole (Esen et al. 2003). In our
previous study, we proposed a tensile-compressive damage
model by incorporating the compressive damage into the
existing damage model. The feasibility of the model is
verified by comparing with four different existing blasting
damage models based on the cross-hole sonic test of the
BID zone of Xiluodu high rock slope (Hu et al. 2012).
1309
In the tensile-compressive damage model, tensile dam-
age is determined following the equations derived by Bu-
diansky and OConnell (1976) for a random array of
penny-shaped cracks in an isotropic elastic medium. The
tensile damage scalar Dt is related to the damaged Pois-
sons ratio l and the crack density parameter Cd through:
16 1  l2
Dt Cd 1
9 1  2l
where Dt is the tensile damage scalar, l represents the
degraded Poissons ratio for damaged material, and Cd is
the crack density parameter.
Following Grady and Kipp (1980), the crack density
parameter is assumed to be proportional to the number of
cracks per unit volume N and a3, the cube of the average
crack radius in a representative volume element, as follows:
Cd Nxa3 2
where x is the proportionality constant. N is expressed as a
Weibull statistical distribution function activated by the
bulk strain ev = (ex ? ey ? ez)/3, such that:
N k ev m 3
where k and m are the material constants.
The average crack radius is estimated from the nominal
fragment radius for dynamic fragmentation in a brittle
material as Eq. (4) (Grady 1983):
p 2=3
1 20KIC
a 4
2 qCe_max
where q is the mass density, C is the uniaxial wave speed,
KIC is the fracture toughness of the material, and e_vmax is
the maximum volumetric strain rate experienced by the
representative volume element at the fracture.
Substituting Eqs. (3) and (4) into Eq. (2), the crack
density parameter could be determined as shown in Eq. (5):
 2
5 KIC
Cd k em
v 5
2 qC e_vmax
An expression based on the percolation theory (Englman
and Jaeger 1987) is as follows:
 
16
l l exp  b Cd 6
9
The value of b controls the unloading and reloading
behaviors and relaxes the restriction of elastic unloading in
the original model according to the study of Taylor et al.
(1986). In the present study, b is set as 0.5.
On the other hand, when the rock material is in com-
pression, based on the coupling principle of the strain-rate
effect in the FurlongDavisAlme (RDA) model (Furlong
et al. 1990), the compressive damage DC is expressed as:
123
1310 Y. Hu et al.

kW_ p numerical simulation of cumulative damage, the damage

D_ C 7 effect of the previous excavation should be cumulated in
1  Dt
the current excavation step. In the present study, the
where k is the sensitivity constant of DC which is taken to damage is recorded with historical variables hsv(i) based
be equal to 1.0 9 10-3 kg/J in this study, while the plastic on the secondary development of the LS-DYNA and
work Wp is computed by: FORTRAN program. The LS-DYNA restart capability
Z
allows analyses to be broken down into stages. The full
Wp rij depij 8 restart technology of LS-DYNA allows the user to restart
the simulation by providing a restart file and, optionally, a
In this way, the tensile damage scalar and compressive restart input defining changes to the model, such as delet-
damage scalar are given in the model simultaneously. ing contacts, materials, elements, switching materials from
Introducing the symbol D into expressing the damage rigid to deformable, deformable to rigid, etc. The stress and
scalar and considering the biggest damage effect, the displacement etc. can be inherited by using the keywords
damage scalar can be obtained as: *STRESS_INITIALIZATION of LS-DYNA, which allows
D max Dt ; DC 9 all parts to be initialized on restart based on the results of
the previous excavation. Figure 3 shows the flow diagram
On the other hand, when the rock material is in
for the numerical simulation of the cumulative blasting
compression, the von Mises yield condition is expressed as:
damage. The circle is implemented repeatedly in every
U K2  r2y 0 10 excavation, which realizes the numerical simulations of
q cumulative damage induced by all excavation steps.
where K 32 sij sij is the von Mises equivalent stress and
ry is the yield stress. 2.3 Finite Element Model
The degraded bulk modulus and shear modulus are
defined as follows: Based on the excavation of the Xiluodu high rock slope,
K K 1  D 11 which is one of the biggest hydropower project slopes in
China, an FEM was constructed as illustrated in Fig. 4. The
3 1  2l
G K 12 excavation zone is in the region marked with the red circle.
2 1 l The height of the blasting excavation layer is 15 m. The
The constitutive relations recording the damage effect diameter of the blast holes is 90 mm. The charge structures
could be defined with Hookes law of increment as follows: of different kinds of blast holes are shown in Fig. 5. To
guarantee that the differences in the damage process is
drij Kdekk dij 2Gdeij 13 induced only by the excavation method, the smooth
where ekk and eij are the volumetric and deviatoric strains, blasting and presplit blasting excavation methods adopt the
respectively, while dij is the Kronecker delta function. same charge structure. The numerical simulation model
LS-DYNA is a well-known general-purpose commercial was finished by employing the dynamic finite element
FE code that has been developed for simulating the non- software ANSYS/LS-DYNA. The excavation region can be
linear dynamic response of structures. It provides the user divided into many identical sections. To make the numer-
with a subroutine interface to implement the user-defined ical simulation feasible and easy to implement, one section
model. Wang et al. (2007) and Ma and An (2008) imple-
mented the user-defined material model into LS-DYNA
Result
and simulated the BID. In the present study, the tensile- Complete restart
LS-prepost
compressive damage model is implemented with the user
subroutine interface of LS-DYNA.
Damage Record LS-DYNA

2.2 Cumulative Damage Simulation Technology User-defined

Fortran subroutine

The numerical simulation of the whole excavation process Damage Process Damage Model
is more complex than one excavation step. In every exca-
vation step, the finite element model (FEM) is modified
and the elements of rock mass excavated in the previous Ls971.exe
excavation are deleted, but the stress and displacement etc.
should be inherited. What is most important for the Fig. 3 Calculation scheme used for cumulative damage

123
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
Fig. 4 Geometry for the
numerical simulation model
based on the Xiluodu high rock
slope
15m
Fig. 5 Schematic illustration of the charge structures
is selected to construct the FEM. The whole-model mesh
has 308,904 elements and 324,987 nodes. The symmetry
boundary was employed in the vertical direction of the
plane, as shown in Figs. 4 and 6, while for the other edges
of the FEM, except for the natural surface, the transmitting
boundaries were adopted to prevent the effects of reflected
waves at the edge of the region.
2.4 Material Identification of Explosive and Air
The JonesWilkensLee (JWL) equation of state is used
here to model the pressure generated by the expansion of
the detonation product of the chemical explosive. It has
been widely used in engineering calculations and can be
written as:
   
x x xE
PA 1 eR1 V B 1  eR2 V
R1 V R2 V V
14
where A, R1, B, R2, and x are material constants, P is the
pressure, V is the relative volume of detonation product,
and E is the specific energy, with an initial value of E0.
Table 1 gives the JWL parameters for the explosive used.
Material type 9 of LS-DYNA (*MAT_NULL) is used to
calculate the pressure P from a specified EOS, which
defines the relationship between pressure, density, and
internal energy. As for the air, the polynomial EOS is
usually employed, in which the pressure P is expressed as:
1311
3m 1.5 3m
100 m
120 m
c b a a--Presplit/Smooth hole
b--Buffering hole
c--Production hole
Fig. 6 Finite element model (FEM) mesh of the excavation zone
P C0 C1 l C2 l2 C3 l3 C4 C5 l C6 l2 e
15
where e is the internal energy per volume. The compres-
sion of the material is defined by the parameter l = (q/
q0) - 1, with q and q0 being the current and initial density
of the material, respectively. As a matter of fact, the air is
often modeled as an ideal gas by setting
C0 = C1 = C2 = C3 = C4 = 0 and C4 = C5 = 0.401.
The air mass density and initial internal energy e0 are
1.255 kg/m3 and 0.25 J/cm3, respectively.
The rock mass surrounding the blast hole is modeled
with the Lagrange mesh, while the explosives and air are
modeled with the Euler mesh. The Arbitrary Lagrangian
Eulerian (ALE) algorithm is employed to model the fluid
solid coupling characteristic in blasting. The command
CONSTRAINED_LAGRANGE_IN_SOLID was used in
the simulation. Initiation points were defined by using the
keywords *INITIAL_DETONATION in LS-DYNA. The
coordinate and detonation time of the initiation points
should be determined. The location of the initiation points
was set at the bottom of the blast holes. Explosives in these
boreholes are not continuous, and the detonation time of
different blast holes was determined according to the
123
1312 Y. Hu et al.

Table 1 JonesWilkensLee (JWL) equation of state parameters of the explosive used

Density (kg/m3) VOD (m/s) PCJ (GPa) A (GPa) B (GPa) R1 R2 x E0 (GPa)

1,000 3,600 3.24 220 0.2 4.5 1.1 0.35 4.2

Table 2 Material constants and damage constants for the modified damage model
Density Elasticity Poissons Dynamic tensile Damage Damage KIC Damage Material
(kg/m3) modulus (GPa) ratio strength (MPa) constant k constant m (MN 9 m-3/2) constant k constant b
(Kg/J)

2,530 25 0.23 2 2.33 9 1024 7 0.92 0.0001 0.5

Crane beam 100

Peak particle velocity (cm/s)

PPV=59.30(Q1/3 /R) 1.227

6# r 2=0.948

Test points 7#
PPV=51.12(Q1/3 /R) 1.236

10 r 2=0.960

Blasting 4# 5# Test results

excavation numerical results

1
0.01 0.1 1
3# Scaled distance( kg1/3 /m)

1# 2# Fig. 8 Peak particle velocity (PPV) attenuation against scaled

distance in the rock mass

calculation based on the vibration measurement of Xiluodu

Fig. 7 Arrangement of vibration measuring points in Xiluodu high
rock slope
excavation sequence as shown in Fig. 2. The delay time of
different rows of blast holes is 30 ms.
2.5 Determination of Rock and Damping Parameters
In the present study, the numerical simulation was imple-
mented based on the case study of the excavation of
Xiluodu high rock slope. Assuming to be isotropic and
homogenous material, the damage constants used in the
tensile-compressive damage model for the rock mass of
basalt are listed in Table 2. The material constants such as
elastic modulus, Poissons ratio, etc. are determined
according to the geological data and field experiments.
Damping determines the attenuation characteristics of
stress waves in rock mass. Whether the damping selection
is correct or not would directly affect the accuracy of the
calculation results to a great extent. Appropriate damping
parameters can be obtained by trial calculation in support
of the field measurements. In the present study, the cali-
bration of damping parameters is implemented by trial
high rock slope. Figure 7 shows the arrangement of the
vibration measuring points. The numerical simulation of
blasting vibration was implemented by employing the
dynamic finite element software LS-DYNA. Figure 8 plots
the simulated and measured attenuation of peak particle
vibration in the rock mass as a function of scaled distance
from the charge center.
Damping in the model is done through the Rayleigh
classical approach by making the damping matrix equal to
a linear combination of the mass and stiffness matrix. The
result of the trial calculation demonstrates that, when val-
ues of mass and stiffness damping used in our case are 6.0
and 0.000035, respectively, the simulated peak particle
velocity (PPV) attenuation is seen to match well with the
test data at all the vibration measuring points. In the next
sections, the damage process of the smooth blasting
excavation and presplit excavation methods are investi-
gated by using the damping parameters selected by cali-
bration. The aim of this calibration stage is to achieve a
close match between direct measurements and model pre-
dictions, and have a better understanding of the impact of
model solution and rock material input parameters on the
final results.

123
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
3 The Damage Process of Smooth Blasting
As discussed in the previous section, damage induced by a
blasting excavation method should contain the contour
blasting itself and other blasting in the excavation zone.
For the smooth blasting excavation method, because
smooth blasting holes detonate after the detonation of other
blasting, this method cannot prevent the cumulative dam-
age effect from other blasting in the excavation zone. But
considering the damage induced by contour blasting itself,
the result may be different. Given certain rock strength and
blasting parameters conditions, the damage in the remain-
ing rock mass is closely related to the peak value and
acting time of the blasting pressure. As illustrated in Fig. 9,
the burden of smooth holes is small, which induces the
required normal stress perpendicular to the crack surface to
become small in the process of crack formation between
the adjacent holes. In addition, the compressive stress wave
spreads along the radial direction to the slope free surface
after detonation and then returns a tensile stress wave,
which accelerates the cracks formation and chamber
expansion. The crack and chamber make the detonation gas
escape more easily, which reduce the action time of the
blasting load. So, by taking the damage induced by contour
blasting into consideration, the smooth blasting excavation
method is very helpful for reducing the damage induced by
the contour blasting itself.
According to the excavation sequence shown in Fig. 2,
the damage process of the smooth blasting excavation
method is simulated with the cumulative damage simula-
tion technology. Figure 10 plots the damage distribution
corresponding to the different excavation steps.
It can be seen that a columnar damage area is formed
near the current detonation blast hole in every excavation
step. The extent of the damage zone induced by the pro-
duction blasting is much larger than that of buffer and
smooth blasting. The first production blasting has induced
damage in the remaining rock mass and the cumulative
damage induced by the second blasting production blasting
is very clear. Although the two times of production blasting
have the same charge structure, the second production
Gas escape
Fig. 9 Field photograph of conventional smooth blasting
1313
blasting is closer to the remaining rock mass, and after the
detonation of first production blasting, the strength of the
rock mass has been degraded, so the damage effect of
second production blasting would be more serious.
Because of differences in the charge structure, the buffer
blasting could not induce obvious cumulative damage in
the remaining rock mass, smooth blasting is closest to the
remaining rock mass, and the damage effect is between
buffer blasting and production blasting. Two classes of
damage zone could be found in the remaining rock mass;
one of them distributes along the slope surface and the
damage degree is more than 0.8, while the other is located
in the middle of the slope and the damage degree is less
than 0.5.
To further study the cumulative damage characteristic of
the smooth blasting excavation method, Fig. 11 shows the
damage process at points A and B shown in Fig. 4.
Four jumps can be found in the damage process of the
two points, which indicate that every blasting step induced
damage in the remaining rock mass. The biggest damage
increment is found at the step of the smooth blasting for
point A, while for point B, the biggest damage jump was
induced by the production blasting. The results demon-
strate that the main damage impact factor is different in
different positions. The main damage-induced factor
around smooth holes is smooth blasting itself, while in the
middle of the slope, production blasting is the main
resource of total damage. Comparing the final damage
degree of points A and B, the degree of damage induced
directly by smooth blasting itself is higher than that of the
cumulative damage. Figure 12 plots the extent of the
damage zone of the top face and at 5 m and 10 m depths of
the blast hole.
The results reveal that the damage extent increases
mainly at the excavation step of production blasting and
smooth blasting at three positions. At the orifice of the blast
hole, the damage was nearly only induced by the smooth
blasting, but at depths of 5 and 10 m, the biggest damage
extent increments were induced by the production blasting.
The cumulative damage induced by the production and
buffer blasting is more than 80 % of the final damage
extent in these positions.
The results of the damage process for the smooth
blasting excavation method prove that cumulative damage
induced by other blasting in the excavation zone could not
be neglected. The production blasting is the main cumu-
lative damage-induced factor, the cumulative damage
effect of buffer blasting is the least significant factor, and
smooth blasting is between the two. The final damage zone
contains two different classes of region: one is induced
directly by smooth blasting and distributes along the slope
surface, the damage degree is almost more than 0.8, and the
extent is small; while the other is caused by the cumulative
123
1314 Y. Hu et al.

Fig. 10 Damage process of

every excavation step for
smooth blasting

1
damage and located in the middle of the slope, the damage
0.9 Point A degree is less than 0.5, but the area is large.
Damage variable D

0.8 Point B
0.7
0.6
4 The Damage Process of Presplit Blasting
0.5
0.4
0.3 As shown in Fig. 2, the presplit blasting detonates before
0.2 the production holes and buffer holes. Precracks formed by
0.1
0
presplit blasting can prevent the blasting stress waves being
1 2 3 4 5 induced by other blasting holes. So, considering the
Excavation step cumulative effect of other blasting in the excavation zone,
the presplit blasting excavation method has an advantage
Fig. 11 Damage development process of points A and B
compared with the smooth blasting excavation method.
However, in terms of damage in the remaining rock mass
induced by the contour blasting itself, the result would be
6
different. Comparing the presplit blasting and smooth
blasting holes, they have similar charge structures and
5 orifice depth of 5m depth of 10m
blasting parameters, so the peak value and rise time of the
Damage extent (m)

4 blasting load are almost the same. However, the burden of

presplit blasting is much greater than that of smooth
3
blasting, as shown in Fig. 13. Rock mass extrusion makes
2 the crack formation difficult and the detonation gases can
only mainly escape from the orifice of the blast hole, which
1
enlarges the acting time of the blasting load. So, consid-
0 ering the damage induced by the contour blast hole itself,
1 2 3 4 5
Excavation step
the presplit blasting method is not helpful for controlling
the damage in the remaining rock mass. The next section
Fig. 12 Damage process at different positions of the blast hole describes the numerical simulation of the damage process

123
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
of the presplit blasting excavation method using the
cumulative damage simulation technology. Figure 14 plots
the damage distribution corresponding to the different
excavation steps.
As with the smooth blasting excavation method, a
columnar damage zone is formed around the current det-
onated blast hole in each excavation step. The BID zone
extent of two rounds of production blasting is the largest.
The rock mass around the presplit blast hole is seriously
damaged after the presplit blasting detonation and the
presplit crack was formed, the stress wave induced by
production blasting and buffer blasting could not pass
though the presplit crack. The damage zone in the
remaining rock mass of the slope is almost only caused by
the presplit blasting itself. Comparing the damage zone
Gas escape
Presplit row
Fig. 13 Field photograph of conventional presplit blasting
Fig. 14 Damage process of
every excavation step for
presplit blasting
1315
induced by the contour blasting itself, as shown in Fig. 10,
the extent of high degree damage around the blast hole of
smooth blasting is about 0.83 m, but for the presplit
blasting, it is 1.1 m, which is an increase by 30 % com-
pared to smooth blasting. The results of the presplit
blasting excavation method prove that the presplit blasting
can shield the cumulative damage effect of other blasting
in the excavation zone, but the damage zone extent induced
by presplit blasting is bigger than that induced by the
smooth blasting itself in the smooth blasting excavation
method.
5 Comparison of the Two Blasting Excavation Methods
In order to make a further comparison between the smooth
blasting excavation and presplit blasting excavation
methods, the distribution characteristics of PPV and final
BID zone in the remaining rock mass are analyzed and
contrasted. Then, the damage control suggestion of the two
methods is proposed respectively.
5.1 Comparison of the Distribution of Blast-Induced
PPV
The isograms of the distributions of PPV induced by
smooth blasting and presplit blasting are plotted in Fig. 15.
123
1316 Y. Hu et al.

MX MX
5.2 Damage Characteristics in Remaining Rock

Figure 16 plots the final damage characteristics in the

C
A
D DE BD
AC E
B F GH
C F H
A=120 I
I B=110
E G C=100
D=90
E=80
F=70
G=60
H=50
I=40
MN
(cm/s) MN
(a) Smooth blasting (b) Presplit blasting
Fig. 15 Isograms of distributions of PPV induced by different
blasting methods
As can be seen, the general rule of PPV distribution for
the two blasting methods is identical overall. The hori-
zontal PPV attenuates quickly with increasing distance.
The maximum value is found at the top of slope close to
the blast hole and the minimum horizontal PPV occurs at
the bottom of slope removed from the slope surface. The
biggest difference in the magnitude of the contours dis-
tribution for the two excavation methods is that a repeated
high peak value zone of vibration velocity in the remaining
rock mass is found for the smooth blasting excavation
method. The repeated high peak value zone is located in
the position of the cumulative damage zone, as marked in
Fig. 16 with a red line. For the smooth blasting excavation
method, because of the cumulative dynamic disturbance of
production blasting and buffer blasting, the high degree of
vibration is induced repeatedly in the remaining rock mass
close to the slope surface. But in terms of the presplit
blasting excavation method, stress waves induced by other
blasting in the excavation zone could not pass through the
presplit crack and the vibration in the remaining rock mass
is almost only induced by the presplit itself.
remaining rock mass of the two excavation methods.
A=100 As can be seen, several obvious differences could be
B=90
C=80
observed between the final damage of the two excavation
D=70
E=60
methods. Two types of damage could be found in the final
F=50 damage zone for smooth blasting excavation; one of them
G=40
H=30 is the columnar damage zone around the slope surface,
I=20
(cm/s) which is directly induced by smooth blasting itself. The
damage degree is almost greater than 0.8 and the extent is
0.83 m. The other type of damage is induced by the
cumulative effect of blasting in the excavation zone. It is
located in the middle of the slope. The damage degree is
lower than 0.5 and the extent is much greater than the first
kind of damage. But in the presplit blasting excavation
method, there is only a columnar damage zone around the
slope surface. The damage degree is almost greater than 0.8
and the extent is 1.1 m. The disadvantage of the smooth
excavation method is that the cumulative effect of blasting
in the excavation zone increases to a large extent and only
to a low degree in the damage zone. But for the presplit
excavation method, the disadvantage is that the extent of
the columnar and high degree damage zone around the
slope surface induced by presplit blasting itself is greater.
5.3 BID Control of the Two Different Blasting
Excavation Methods
The total damage of smooth blasting is a result of cumu-
lated damage induced by the production hole, buffering
hole, and smooth hole. The most important impact factor of
cumulated damage in the remaining rock mass is produc-
tion blasting, so the damage control should focus on the
restraint of production hole-induced damage. Studies over
the years have shown that the blast damage and

Fig. 16 Comparison of the final

damage distributions of the two
excavation zones

123
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
Cautious blasting zone
Final Slope Crest
Extent of Damage
Smooth Row
Buffer Row
Production row
Fig. 17 Damage control suggestion of smooth blasting
underground structures due to blasting can be related to
particle velocity. As proposed by Holmberg and Persson
(1978), comparison to a particle velocity-based damage
criteria will then yield the extent of damage. The design
principle should follow strictly that the particle velocity in
the remaining rock mass induced by each row could not
exceed the damage critical value. The damage critical
distance between each production row and the final contour
surface can be determined (Lu and Hustrulid 2001). If the
design distance of each production is greater than the
critical distance, the damage in the remaining rock mass
induced by production can be controlled. As shown in
Fig. 17, the region between the final production row and
the final contour surface could be named as the cautious
blasting zone, in which the buffer rows could be increased
and the decoupling coefficient of the charge structure could
be enlarged in order to control the damage extent.
The disadvantage of presplit blasting is that the damage
induced by presplit blasting itself is more serious than that
of smooth blasting. The charge structure and blast hole
parameters could be changed to reduce the peak value and
action time of presplit blasting as well. The air-deck charge
structure and notch holes etc. have been proved to be
effective to control the damage of contour blasting (Rat-
hore and Bhandari 2007; Lu and Hustrulid 2003). Based on
Fig. 18 Damage control
suggestion of presplit blasting
1317
the comparison of damage induced by presplit blasting and
smooth blasting itself, it can be expected that the burden of
contour blasting could seriously impact the formation of
the BID zone in the remaining rock mass. So, the damage
Current Crest control of presplit blasting could focus on the reduction of
the burden length of presplit holes. The sequence of pre-
split blasting was changed as follows: a part of production
blastingpresplit blastingproduction blastingbuffer
blasting. The new combination of blasting methods could
be named presplit blasting with lateral surface. Figure 18
illustrates the use of the method in high rock slope. The
Final
first detonated production holes could create a new lateral
surface and reduce the length of burden of presplit holes.
Then, the rock extrusion of rock mass was weakened and
the crack formation became easy, which reduces the action
time of the blasting load and reduces the damage extent.
In the first phase of the slope excavation, presplit
blasting with lateral surface was used successfully in the
excavation of temporary shiplock slopes. The diameter of
the blast holes was 110 or 90 mm. When the excavation
reaches the vicinity of the slopes contour surface, a lateral
protection layer with a width of 58 m was reserved.
Presplit blasting was implemented at the contour surface
and then the lateral protect layer was fragmented by two or
three rows of buffer holes. The distance between adjacent
buffer rows was 1.5 or 2 m. The excavation sequence is
illustrated in Fig. 19. Because the splitting of rock mass by
presplit blasting with lateral surface is easier than that of
presplit blasting in semi-infinite rock mass, the width of the
presplit crack formed was over 20 mm. Reduction of the
effects of blast vibration induced by production and buffer
holes were good. Based on the blast vibration measurement
of the blasting excavation of temporary shiplock slopes of
the Three Gorges Project, the measured PPV on the slope at
a distance of 15 m away from the blasting contour were
controlled within 810 cm/s (Lu and Hustrulid 2001).
During the second phase of the shiplock slope excava-
tion, smooth blasting technology was adopted in the for-
mation of the shiplocks vertical wall. Details of the
blasting excavation design are shown in Fig. 20. The
:presplit blasting :buffer blasting
:production blasting squence:
Final Slope Crest Current Crest
Extent of Damage
123
1318
Fig. 19 Excavation sequence
of the temporary shiplock slopes
in the first phase
Middle-isolated pier
Vertical wall
Buffer holes Smooth holes
Smooth holes
Contour surface
Buffer holes
cautious blasting zone
Fig. 20 Excavation sequence of the temporary shiplock slopes in the
second phase
distance between each row of production holes and the
slope surface could not exceed the damage critical distance
determined by a particle velocity-based damage criteria.
The region between the final production row and the final
contour surface is the cautious blasting zone, as defined
in Fig. 17; three buffer rows and two smooth rows were set
to control the damage extent in the remaining rock mass of
the shiplocks vertical wall. Based on the above blasting
technology and parameters, the contour surface of the
shiplocks vertical wall was smooth and the half-cast ratio
of smooth blasting is more than 95 %. The results of sonic
wave velocity tests demonstrate that the depth of the BID
zone in the remaining rock mass of the shiplock slope was
only about 0.4 m.
6 Conclusions and Discussions
In the present study, the damage process of the smooth
blasting excavation method and the presplit blasting
123
Y. Hu et al.
Original ground contour
Excavation contour
1:0.
1:1
99 95
3
lateral protect layer presplit holes
1:0.
1:0.3
88
3
84 79
Middle-isolated
69 69
pier
Ship lift 5~8 61 Temporary ship lock
50
7.5
13~20 58.4 23~28.5 25
excavation method of high rock slope was simulated by
using the tensile-compressive damage model and a cumu-
lative damage simulation technology based on the sec-
ondary development of the dynamic finite element code
Production holes LS-DYNA. The results demonstrate that the final damage
in remaining rock mass is induced by the cumulative effect
of all blasting in the excavation zone. The damage induced
by production blasting is the most serious, while that of
buffer blasting is the least serious, with smooth blasting in
between the two. But for the presplit blasting excavation
method, the final damage is almost only induced by the
presplit blasting itself.
There are two kinds of damage that could be found in
the remaining rock mass of the smooth excavation method;
one is the columnar high degree damage zone around the
slope surface, which is directly affected by smooth blast-
ing, and the other is the low degree damage zone located in
the middle of the slope, which is induced by the cumulative
effect of blasting in the excavation zone. For the presplit
excavation method, there is only a columnar high degree
damage zone around the slope surface, which is induced by
presplit blasting itself. The extent of the damage zone
induced by presplit blasting itself is greater than that of the
columnar high degree damage zone, which was induced by
smooth blasting itself.
In the case of smooth blasting, the design approach
based on the damage criteria of particle velocity was
introduced. For the method of presplit blasting, except for
changing the charge structure and parameters of the
explosive detonation, the method of presplit blasting with
lateral surface was proposed to reduce the damage induced
by the presplit blasting itself.
It should be pointed out that the emphasis of this paper is
to present the differences in the damage processes of the
smooth and presplit blasting methods. The isotropic and
homogeneous damage model for the rock mass is employed
in the numerical simulation for rock damage under blasting,
Comparison of Blast-Induced Damage
while the anisotropic and inhomogeneous damage of the
rock mass in reality are ignored. Otherwise, the cumulative
blasting damage simulation technology proposed in the
present study and numerical simulation of the smooth
blasting and presplit blasting methods still provide a good
reference for the BID of high rock slope excavation.
Acknowledgments This work is supported by the Chinese National
Programs for Fundamental Research and Development (973 Program)
(2011CB013501), Chinese National Science Fund for Distinguished
Young Scholars (51125037), Chinese National Natural Science
Foundation (50909077 and 51179138), and the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (2012206020205). The
authors wish to express their thanks to all the supporters.
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