Geotech Geol Eng (2011) 29:651663 DOI 10.

1007/s10706-011-9425-x

STATE-OF-THE-ART REVIEW

Theory and Practice of Air-Deck Blasting in Mines and Surface Excavations: A Review
J. C. Jhanwar

Received: 17 July 2008 / Accepted: 11 June 2011 / Published online: 17 June 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract The mechanism by which the explosive energy is transferred to the surrounding rock mass is changed in air-deck blasting. It allows the explosive energy to act repeatedly in pulses on the surrounding rock mass rather than instantly as in the case of concentrated charge blasting. The air-deck acts as a regulator, which rst stores energy and then releases it in separate pulses. The release of explosion products in the air gap causes a decrease in the initial bore hole pressure and allows oscillations of shock waves in the air gap. The performance of an air-deck blast is basically derived from the expansion of gaseous products and subsequent multiple interactions between shock waves within an air column, shock waves and stemming base and shock waves and hole bottom. This phenomenon causes repeated loading on the surrounding rock mass by secondary shock fronts for a prolonged period. The length of air column and the rock mass structure are critical to the ultimate results. Several attempts have been made in the past to study the mechanism of air-deck blasting and to investigate its effects on blast performance but a clear understanding of the underlying mechanism and the physical processes to explain its actual effects is yet to emerge. In the absence of any theoretical

basis, the air-deck blast designs are invariably carried out by the rules of thumb. The eld trials of this technique in different blast environments have demonstrated its effectiveness in routine production blasting, pre-splitting and controlling over break and ground vibrations etc. The air-deck length appropriate to the different rock masses and applications need to be dened more explicitly. It generally ranges between 0.10 and 0.30 times the original charge length. Mid column air-deck is preferred over the top and bottom air-decks. Top air-deck is used especially in situations, which require adequate breakage in the stemming region. The inuence of air-deck location within the hole on blast performance also requires further studies. This paper reviews the status of knowledge on the theory and practice of air-deck blasting in mines and surface excavations and brings out the areas for further investigation in this technique of blasting. Keywords Air-deck blasting Conventional blasting Open-pit mine Shock wave Air-deck length Original charge length Fragmentation

1 Introduction
J. C. Jhanwar (&) Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research Regional Centre, 3rd Floor, MECL Building, Seminary Hills, Nagpur 440006, India e-mail: jcjhanwar@yahoo.com

Charge congurations play an important role in achieving required blasting performance. The different charge designs commonly used are: full column

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fully coupled high explosive charges, full column fully coupled low density low VOD charges, full columndecoupled charges and fully coupled decked charges using either air or solid decks. In concentrated charge blasting, as a full column of explosive detonates, the tremendous initial pressure that arises in explosion products greatly exceeds the strength of the rock mass, so that a strong shock wave begins to propagate into the medium, crushing it and breaking it into extremely small particles. Because of this intense, excessive crushing of the rock, a large portion of the explosive energy is wasted in an area near the charge. The movement of medium in that case is determined by compressive wave, and once it has passed, the movement is virtually discontinued, the medium passes into a quasi staticequilibrium state, and the process of further breakage ceases (Chiappetta and Memmele 1987; Moxon et al. 1993). Increase in the degree of coupling and/or explosion pressure of charges, therefore do not necessarily lead to enhanced breakage or improvements in the degree of fragmentation. In the case of decked charges, crushing is expected to occur only within a certain distance of the charge surface. When the decking material is dry and granular, the rate of decay of blast hole pressure for each charge deck is greater than that for a full column charge. This change in the pressuretime prole is caused by: (i) the entry of explosion gases into and through macro pores within the material, and (ii) the rapid rate of yield of the material under very high axial impulsive load. These effects are most pronounced, when the decking material is air. With air-decked charges, the very rapid axial streaming of explosion gases into the air void causes an impulsive decay of pressure at each charge location (Hagan and Gibson 1988). The air-deck blasting technique has a long history of applications. The earliest reference of its use in production blasting date as far back as 1893 as reported by Liu and Katsabanis (1996). Much of the research work on this technique has however been carried out in the former Soviet Union (MelNikov 1940; MelNikov et al. 1979; MelNikov and Marchenko 1971; Marchenko 1982). Later on, several researchers have conducted theoretical and model studies towards further

understanding of the underlying mechanism and its effects on blast performance (Fourney et al. 1981; Chiappetta and Memmele 1987; Moxon et al. 1993; Liu and Katsabanis 1996; Lu and Hustrulid 2003). The presence of air gap allows the explosion product gases to move and expand into the air gap, thus decreases the initial bore hole pressure. The shock waves oscillate in the borehole, interact mutually and also with stemming column and/or hole bottom. The repeated interactions result in the generation of reinforced secondary shock front and allow shock waves to act over the surrounding rock mass for a longer period (MelNikov and Marchenko 1971; Fourney et al. 1981; Moxon et al. (1993). The fracture and stress proles resulting from different charge geometries and distributions are shown in Fig. 1 (Chiappetta and Memmele 1987). Detailed discussions on the theory of rock breakage and the relative techno-economic efciency of different charge designs is beyond the scope of this paper. This paper, however reviews the status of knowledge on the principles of rock breakage in airdeck blasting and its practical applications.

2 Mechanism of Air-Deck Blasting 2.1 General In blasting with air-decking, the presence of air in air-deck plays a critical role in obtaining the advantages. During a blast, the air is initially static and at room temperature and pressure. The air material under such physical conditions offers virtually no resistance to the expansion of the detonation products which have temperature and pressure about 34 orders higher in magnitude. The detonation products do transfer some energy to the air by compressing and heating it. However, even if the air is to be as energetic as the detonation products, the fraction transferred is at the most in the order of one thousandth of the energy retained in the later (Liu and Katsabanis 1996). The size and location of air-deck are the two important parameters in this technique. The air-deck can be placed in a blast hole at three different locations namely, at the top of explosive charge, in the middle of the explosive column and at the bottom

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Geotech Geol Eng (2011) 29:651663 Fig. 1 Fracture and stress proles resulting from different charge geometries and distributions (After Chiappetta and Memmele 1987)

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of the blast hole below the explosive charge. The airdeck placed at these locations are commonly referred to as top air-deck, mid-column air-deck and bottom air-deck respectively. 2.2 Some Basic Equations The shock wave propagation of the detonation products in a blasthole with an air deck was analysed by Lu and Hustrulid (2003). They obtained the initial average detonation pressure (Pe) as Eq. 1 and the nal average pressure of detonation products as Eq. 2. Pe qeD2 2 c 1  c La Po Pe La Le 1 2

P C1

MnRT1=3 S

!C2 3

where, M is the mass of explosive, n is the number of moles of gas, R is the universal gas constant, T is the temperature of the expanding gas, S is the displacement of the pressure front and C1 and C2 are the empirical constants. MelNikov and Marchenko 1971 considered the collision of two gas streams in air gap as similar to the impact of shock wave with a static wall and obtained the excess pressure (DPref in MPa) as shown in Eq. (4). MPref MP1 P0 3c 1=c 1MP1 P0 P0 MP1 P0 c 1=c 1P0 4 where, DP1 is the excess pressure on the moving wave front (MPa), P0 is the pressure in front of the moving wave (MPa), and c is the adiabatic factor, a unit less parameter. 2.3 Different Views MelNikov (1940) rst introduced the idea that energy in a blast could be redistributed with airdecks placed within an explosive column. He opined that by reducing the initial pressure of detonation products and increasing the duration of their action on rock, energy consumed in crushing around the

where, Pe is the initial average detonation pressure (MPa), qe is the density of explosive (kg/m3), D is the detonation velocity of explosive (m/s), Po is the nal average pressure (MPa), La is the length of air-deck (m), Le is the length of charge column (m) and c is an adiabatic index, a unit less parameter. The detonation pressure of explosive is initially very high as compared to the fracture toughness of surrounding rock however, as it enters the air-deck it drops off rapidly with distance (Kinney and Graham 1985) (Eq. 3) as quoted by Moxon et al. 1991.

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bore hole wall would be reduced while increasing the amount of energy transmitted into the surrounding medium. The theory as proposed by MelNikov et al. (1979) concerns the use of an explosive column that contains a number of air-lled gaps as a means of maximising fragmentation for a given charge length. They suggested that air-decks provide a means whereby a second strain wave could be readily and inexpensively generated. The theory postulates that reections of the shock wave within the bore hole produce a secondary strain wave that extends the network of micro fractures prior to gas pressurization. Although this reduces the nal borehole pressure produced by the explosive, the degree of fracture increases through the repeated loading of the rock by a series of aftershocks. These aftershocks arise from the different velocities or distances travelled within the air-deck by three main pressure fronts: the shock front, the pressure front resulting from the formation of explosion products behind the detonation front, and reected waves from the bottom of blast hole and/or from the base of the stemming. According to MelNikov (1940), MelNikov and Marchenko (1971) and Marchenko (1982), a greater fraction of the energy with air-decked charges remains initially in gases, heave energy increases at the expense of strain wave energy and much less energy is wasted in pulverising rock immediately around blast holes. The air-deck in such cases acts as a strain accumulator, which rst stores energy and then releases it in separate pulses rather than instantly. The greater fraction of explosion energy in such cases therefore contributes to useful fracturing and to burden movement. In blasting an air-decked charge, the products of explosion could no longer generate a powerful shock wave in the medium, since, after charge detonation, they expand into the air gap, and their pressure is decreased. Expanding explosion products generate a shock air wave ahead, and since expansions from two portions of the charge move in the opposite direction, in the middle of air gaps, there will be a collision of shock air-waves, followed by a breaking of explosion products. As a result of this collision, a new source of high pressure is formed in the center of the air gap (Eq. 4). After reection, the shock waves change direction and start moving towards the hole face and the stemming edge. Reected from these hard obstacles,

the shock waves again collide in the center of air-gap, and the process is repeated, although with changed wave parameters. They calculated that the charges with air gaps transfer approximately 1.51.7 times more energy to the medium in comparison to the continuous charges. Since the shock waves oscillate repeatedly within an air-gap, their velocities and pressure at the wave front are governed by the length they travel within the air column. Air-deck length is, therefore critical to the fragmentation. The effectiveness of this technique is also controlled by the rock mass structure and its strength. This pattern of dynamic expansion of explosion products greatly increases the length of action of a blast on the surrounding rock, and most importantly, improves the crushing dynamics, since, during the entire time of movement of the shock wave in the hole, compression waves are radiated into the rock, developing and expanding the network of micro cracks formed by the primary shock wave (Marchenko 1982). Fourney et al. (1981) observed that presence of air gap at the top causes shock wave to move up and interact with stemming base causing a pressure increase at air-stemming interface. It helps in enhanced breakage in the air-deck and stemming regions. Marchenko (1982) reported that due to reduced stresses in the zone near air-decked charges, excessive crushing of rock around the charge is signicantly decreased as compared to solid charges. He reported a 25% increase in stresses in the farther regions, which accounted for improved fragmentation and a 50% increase in the utilisation of explosive energy for breakage. Chiappetta and Memmele (1987) observed that a solid column explosive generates a high pressure impulse into the medium that succeeds in creating many micro-fractures, but decays very quickly and the stress eld around the charge decays to a quasistatic state. To improve on the initial fracture network, additional stress waves are needed to pass through the medium. Since air-deck tends to generate smaller, but repeated loading cycles, fragmentation is expected to increase. An air-deck placed between two charges was considered as an energy accumulator, which rst stored and later released energy in the form of additional stress waves that produced

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multiple loadings in the medium. It was this unique ability of air-decked charges to prolong the explosive action that enhance the fragmentation. Moxon et al. (1993) opined that if the air-deck is located at some intermediate point in an explosive column, the pressure fronts that are produced by the explosive at each end of the air-deck could, if strong enough, interact. Such interaction should produce a reinforced stress eld that would contribute to the formation of a more extensive radial crack pattern than if an air-deck of the same length were placed at the top of the charge. Liu and Katsabanis 1996 noted that the presence of an air-deck at the top of an explosive charge weakens the primary loading on to the stemming. They observed that if the air deck length is more than the minimum required, the secondary loading effect due to the reection of shock wave at stemming interface exceeds the weakening of primary loading and thus induces enhanced breakage. It was found that the energy relationships are totally changed by the introduction of an air-deck. Firstly, the energy retained is transformed into kinetic energy, driving the detonation products into rapid movement, and then the kinetic energy is imparted to the rock mass upon collisions in the form of strain energy and elastic dissipation. The extra strain energy is responsible for the enhanced rock breakage. Lu and Hustrulid 2003 conducted theoretical and numerical simulations of blasting with top air-decks and proposed that the repeated propagation of rarefaction wave and the reected rarefaction wave in the detonation products causes the pressure unloading process, which is instrumental in inducing the benets of enhanced breakage. They observed that the breakage in the air-deck and in the stemming regions is primarily caused by the reection of shock wave at the stemming base. Their other observations on the overall blasthole pressure, reasonable air-deck length, etc. were in general agreement to those by the earlier researchers.

decked charges caused about 93% breakage whereas solid charges caused only about 70%. The process of cracking with air-decked charges was initially somewhat retarded, but then evolved rapidly (partly due to reected waves). MelNikov and Marchenko (1971) reported the study of dynamic stress elds by photo elasticity and conrmed that the blast action of air-decked charges was enhanced not only due to a lowering of the initial pressure of explosion products and their increased time of action on the medium, but also because of the interaction of explosion waves due to the existence of air gaps in the charge (Figs. 2, 3). The motion of medium caused by blasting a continuous charge is characterised by quickly damped oscillations (Fig. 2). After the compression wave has passed, the medium soon acquires a state of static equilibrium. At that time, there is no further energy transfer to the medium and no further breakage. When blasting charges with air gaps, the bore hole inner hydrodynamics ensures multiple impact of the shock wave with the surrounding medium (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2 Oscillogram showing the displacement speeds of medium when blasting a continuous charge (After Melnikov and Marchenko 1971)

3 Laboratory Studies 3.1 Physical Modeling MelNikov (1940) conducted some blasting experiments in a ledge shaped model and found that airFig. 3 Oscillogram showing displacement speeds of medium when blasting a charge with an air gap (After Melnikov and Marchenko 1971)

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An air gap between sections of a bore hole charge results in excitation of secondary waves that diffuse into previously compressed rock. This charge structure ensures multiple impacts of a shock wave into the surrounding medium, and at the same time, it changes the nature of energy transfer to the strained rock mass that leads to an increase in the effective explosion energy for rock breakage. Fourney et al. (1981) conducted a series of experiments in thick Plexiglas blocks to investigate dynamic crack propagation resulting from an airlled bore hole. High-speed photography in conjunction with dynamic photo elasticity was used for this purpose. A 250 mg charge of PETN was placed at the bottom of a 12.7 mm diameter borehole and a stem plug was placed near the top of the borehole. An air column of 165 mm length was placed between the stem plug and the top of the charge. It was observed that a shock wave traveled up the borehole upon detonation, impacted the stemming and reected back with the same sign as the incoming wave. Due to this interaction, pressure at the stem plug not only acted over a longer period but was also increased by a factor of 25 which appeared to be very useful in initiating and propagating fractures in this region. As a result, the fractures in stemming region were more
Fig. 4 The developing crack networks in Plexiglas under the inuence of an air-decked explosive charge (After Fourney et al. 1981)

elaborate than in the charge area (Fig. 4). The highest pressures, other than near the explosive charge, were experienced at the interface between stemming and air-deck and extended up into the stemming region. Though the fractures in this region were not as intense as in the charge region but involved a larger area. Moxon et al. (1993) conducted experiments in concrete models to evaluate the inuence of air-deck size and its location on fragmentation. They noted that the degree of fragmentation depended on both factors. As the size of air-deck increased, the degree of fragmentation was reduced relative to a full column charge, however the reduction was relatively small until a critical size was exceeded (Fig. 5). A critical air-deck length of 3035% of the original explosive column was determined for the model materials that were used in the study. The location of air-deck also inuenced fragmentation. Midcolumn air-decks produced better fragmentation for the same air-deck length and explosive loading as compared to top and bottom air-decks. They noted that in the case of multi decked charges, length of air-deck could probably be increased because of the increased shock reections and interactions within the bore hole.

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Geotech Geol Eng (2011) 29:651663 Fig. 5 Effect of increasing air-deck volume on mean fragment size at constant stemming height (After Moxon et al. 1993)

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3.2 Numerical Modeling Liu and Katsabanis (1996) studied the inuence of different charge designs including air-decked charges on blast results by means of numerical modeling. In this study, air-deck was considered as a vacuum deck. Only the rock damage induced by shock/stress wave was modeled in this study. They reported that during the detonation process, only a fraction of the total energy is transmitted as a shock energy into the rock medium while a significant amount of it is retained in the detonation products. The existence of an air deck on top of the explosive charge allows this part of energy in the detonation products to be released when it expands in the air deck. It was found that the energy relationships are totally changed by the introduction of an air deck. Firstly, the energy retained is transformed into kinetic energy, driving the detonation products into rapid movement, then the kinetic energy is imparted to the rock mass upon collisions in the form of strain energy and elastic dissipation. The extra strain energy is responsible for the enhanced rock breakage. Two cases were studied with an explosive charge overlain by stemming and the other with an air-deck between the charge and stemming. In the rst case, the movement of the detonation products was strictly conned in a limited space. The pressure history of top most explosive element in this case is shown in Fig. 6. Upon detonation, the pressure reaches its peak and then comes down to a stable value afterwards. The stress eld around the bore hole chamber is approximately quasi-static and decays rapidly with distance. The pressure history of the top most explosive element when the air-deck is 0.96 m long is shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 6 Pressure history of an explosive element in a model with full stemming (After Liu and Katsabanis 1996)

Fig. 7 Pressure history of an explosive element in a model with an air-deck (After Liu and Katsabanis, 1996)

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As a result of gas front impacting the stemming, a series of pressure waves is stimulated as the detonation products reverberate in the borehole chamber. This process is accompanied by a rapid release and transformation of the energy carried by the detonation products. These additional stress waves due to secondary loading act on the rock medium after the passage of the primary loading wave and cause the further damage. They observed that there existed a minimum benecial air-deck length below which the blast results were inferior as compared to the fully stemmed boreholes. Although the use of an air-deck facilitated the release of energy retained in the detonation products, it also weakened primary loading in the position of stemming. A signicant amount of energy was transmitted into the rock medium through stemming during the loading process. An air deck on top of the explosive column separated the later from the stemming. As a result, primary loading due to the detonation of the explosive charge could not impact the stemming and imparted energy to it. In fact, the stemming in this case was loaded by the explosion gas only, which traveled through the airdeck. The energy loss from primary loading to stemming was assumed to be compensated by secondary loading due to the reverberation of detonation products. However, if the air-deck was not long enough, only a small portion of potential energy in the explosion gas could be released. This portion was too small to compensate the said energy loss and thus the results were deteriorated. With an increase in air-deck length, the energy transmitted into the rock medium by secondary loading increased rapidly. The increased amount of energy fully compensated the energy loss from primary loading to stemming and enhanced the rock fracturing and fragmentation processes. There existed a breakeven point in airdeck length, termed as a minimum benecial air-deck length at which the energy loss from primary loading to stemming was just compensated by energy gain from secondary loading by detonation products. Since, this length was resulted from the uncompensated energy loss from primary loading, its existence and actual value therefore depended upon how important primary loading was i.e., on the explosive properties as well as rock types. Mid-column and bottom air-decks did not modify the blast results in their studies.

Lu and Hustrulid (2003) studied the blast effects from a top air deck and fully charged blast hole using numerical simulations. In the case of a fully charged blast hole, only one pressure loading process was indicated during the whole rock breakage process. In contrast to this, at least one loading process and one unloading process were indicated in the pressuretime histories corresponding to the different sections of blast hole in the case of air decking. The induced minor principal stresses responsible for enhanced breakage in the air-deck case were far higher at 390 MPa as compared to 59 MPa in the case of a fully charged blast hole. The observed higher pressure in part of the blast hole in air-deck case implied the effect of reected shock wave as a main energy source in breaking rock in the air deck and stemming portions.

4 Field Studies MelNikov and Marchenko (1971) and MelNikov et al. (1979) reported that regardless of the rock strength and explosive type as well as blasting procedures, the use of air-deck charges substantially improved the degree and uniformity of fragmentation. The average fragment size, the amount of oversize and the explosive consumption were reduced by 5060%, 5090% and 1030% respectively. Besides this, the rock mass output increased and the cutter break inside the rock mass and the seismic effect of the blast were decreased. The productivity of excavators and mine transport raised by 1030%, and sometimes, it even doubled. According to them, the application of air-decked charges in open-pit and underground developments of ore, coal, schist and other minerals considerably improved the techno-economics. They observed that air-decked charges provided efcient control over explosive energy with the correctly selected parameters of charge and air deck lengths. MelNikov et al. 1979 suggested practical guidelines on air-deck lengths as shown in Eqs. 5, 6. La;d K1 Lt La;d K2 d K1 0:15 0:35 K2 8 12 5 6

where, La,d is the air-deck length (m), Lt is the total charge length including air-deck (m), d is the charge diameter (m) and K1 and K2 are the rock factors.

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Chiappetta and Memmele 1987 reported full scale trials of air-deck charges in a coal mine to characterize their effects in a production environment. The objective was to determine the techno economic feasibility of using air-decks in pre-splitting and other applications. Four tests were performed to investigate the effects of air-decks in single hole detonations, multiple hole detonations, bore holes containing water and in unstemmed bore holes. The surface effects resulting from single hole detonations in two different deck patterns are shown in Figs. 8, 9. They also reported air-deck pre splitting (ADP) applications in the full scale production environment. In one of such cases, the air deck length was 9.2 m, the explosive charge by volume was approximately 17% of the drill hole and 27% of the air deck. This technique had produced fair to excellent results in a wide variety of formations with cost reductions of an order of 1046%. Bussey and Borg (1988) in their ADP trials observed a reduction in drilling and explosive costs by 25 and 50% respectively and improvements in high wall control and safety. Rowlands (1989) reported the results of air-deck blasting in sedimentary formations in a coal mine. The air-deck length as a fraction of original charge length (ADL) was kept at 0.280.36 and was placed in the weaker strata. Explosive consumption was

Fig. 9 Surface effects from single hole blasting with 1.5 m air-deck (After Chiappetta and Memmele 1987)

Fig. 8 Surface effects from single hole blasting with full stemming (After Chiappetta and Memmele 1987)

reduced by 1520% while improving or maintaining the fragmentation. Face bursting was also minimized, which helped to maximize the effective explosive energy. He opined that air had an advantage over other decking mediums in allowing the detonation products to expand into the air gap. Chiappetta (1992) observed that peak pressure values were not necessarily the most important in creating damage and/or heave. It was the repeated loading of shock wave and the total pressure time histories that appeared to be useful for permanent damage and heave. Mid-column air-deck was implemented with the use of precision detonators and it was observed that upon collision, the gas fronts reected and reverberated within the column and created repeated loading on to the rock mass. Mead et al. (1993) reported the use of air-decks in production blasting in three cases one each of copper, iron ore and coal mine. The ADL varied between 0.35 and 0.45 and were placed between the explosive column and stemming. The air-decks were used to provide more even explosive distribution within the hole. Explosive consumption was reduced by 1535% without any adverse effects on the diggability of the material. Jhanwar and Jethwa (2000) and Jhanwar et al. (2000) reported the studies of air-deck blasting in open-pit manganese and coal mines and observed that

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Geotech Geol Eng (2011) 29:651663 Table 2 Air-deck length for different rock masses (After Jhanwar 1998) No. 1. 2. 3. RMR (Bieniawskis 1989) 2035 3545 4565 ADL* 0.300.40 0.200.30 0.100.20

air-deck blasting improved the overall fragmentation and reduced explosive cost (in Indian Rupee) by 10 35%, throw (in meter) by 1035% and back break (in meter) by 5080%. The blast performance from airdeck blasting in terms of mean fragment size (MFS) in meter (m), powder factor (PF) in kilogram per cubic meter (kg/m3) and fragmentation index (FI), a dimensionless parameter expressed as the ratio of average in situ fragment size (m) to average muck pile fragment size (m) was correlated with rock mass rating (RMR) (Bieniawski 1989), ADL and the ratio of spacing (m) and burden (m) (S B) (Jhanwar 1998) (Eq. 7, 8). MFS PF 2:04RMR ADL S B1:04 r 0:94 7 FI 0:08RMR ADL S B 3:40 r 0:82 8

* Air deck length measured as a fraction of the original charge length

Air deck blasting maximised the fragmentation and made it more uniform. Analysis of eld results further revealed that the technique was more effective in very low to low strength rocks with medium to large in-situ blocks in comparison to medium strength rocks with small in situ blocks. In medium strength rocks with smaller blocks, the benet was more in terms of explosive saving than in terms of fragmentation (Jhanwar 1998). Based on direct eld observations and the analysis of eld data of blasting studies, a feasibility index for air deck blasting and guidelines on ADL for various rocks masses in open-pit mines were proposed by Jhanwar 1998 (Tables 1, 2). Sen (1997) reported the use of ADP and observed improvement in powder factor from 0.21 to 0.16 kg/ Tonne, reduction in mean fragment size from 211 to 162 mm and back break from 9 m to nil. Further, the
Table 1 Feasibility of air-deck blasting for various rock masses (After Jhanwar 1998) No. 1. 2 3. Type of rock mass Very low to low strength Sedimentary rock Very low to low strength Sparsely jointed rock Medium strength sedimentary rock (blocky type), closely jointed rock Very good Good Feasibility Excellent

shovel loading rate and shovel availability were reported to have improved from 1136 to 1148 Tonne/ hour and from 78 to 87% respectively. Pal Roy (1999) reported that VOD of the detonation front was much higher at 4163 m/s in the air column as compared to 399 m/s in solid deck. Further, through air-deck blast trials in blast holes of different lengths and diameters, he observed that air-decking was more pronounced and protable when the length of hole was more than 10 m and the diameter was more than 150 mm. Subsequent to the eld trials on mid column airdeck and full column blasting conducted in Iron ore and Coal mines, Sastry and Chandar (2001) reported savings in explosive by 18%. ADL varied between 0.13 and 0.14 with a corresponding reduction in stemming column by 1420%. Further, ground vibration, throw and back break were reported to be reduced by 3550%, 2035% and 1625% respectively. Fragmentation was also better in comparison to the full column charge blasting. The explosive consumption per hole in the case of a coal mine reduced from 42 kg to 31.25 kg, a reduction of 26%. Thote and Singh (2001) reported that air-deck blasting resulted in increased powder factor, improved fragmentation (average fragment size reduced by 8.2564.84%) and reduced explosive consumption by 1520% in coal mines. They observed a reduction of approximately 35% in ground vibration also and indicated that the technique was more suitable for higher depths of hole preferably beyond 6 m. The ADL used was in the range of 0.150.16.

5 Discussions A number of studies have been conducted in the past to understand the theory and mechanism of air-deck

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blasting. These indicate that this technique induces a change in the mechanism of explosive energy transfer to the surrounding rock mass. The explosive energy in this case acts repeatedly in pulses on the surrounding rock mass rather than instantly as in the case of a concentrated charge blasting. This change is brought about by the release of detonation products in the air gap and the multiple interactions between reverberating shock fronts, shock front and stemming base/hole bottom. This phenomenon cause repeated loading on surrounding rock mass for a prolonged period. The pressure of shock front reduces with distance in air and also the shock induced rock breakage is inuenced by the rock mass strength and structure. The air deck length and rock mass characteristics are therefore critical to the ultimate results. The issues which appear to be vital to air-deck blasting performance are: (i) the inuence of air-deck on fragment size distribution, (ii) the reasonable length of air column for different types of rock mass, (iii) the location of air column in the blast hole. 5.1 Air-Deck Size MelNikov et al. 1979 suggested two empirical correlations of air-deck length, one with total charge length including air-deck and the other with charge diameter as shown in Eqs. 5 and 6. Two ranges of values for rock factors K1 and K2 were suggested, however these factors were not explicitly related to the different rock types. Moxon et al. (1993) theoretically estimated the air-deck length and found it to be in conformity with MelNikovs recommendations. The basic difference between their assessment of critical air-deck length was that MelNikov et al. (1979) had called it as an optimum range for improving fragmentation whereas Moxon et al. (1993) had termed it as a critical air-deck length below which fragmentation was not signicantly deteriorated but beyond which, it was signicantly worsened. Jhanwar 1998 had suggested values of ADL suitable for different rock masses as characterised by their RMR. These ndings were, however based upon the limited number of experiments conducted in

two different mines, which didnt cover the whole range of rock mass. Lu and Hustrulid (2003) mathematically derived the reasonable ADL at 0.130.39, which is in the close agreement to that suggested by MelNikov et al. (1979). 5.2 Air-Deck Location The studies of Fourney et al. 1981 using top air deck has indicated improvements in extent of breakage in air-deck and stemming regions, though the intensity was lesser than in the charge region. The effects of middle air deck and deck length were not discussed in this study. Liu and Katsabanis 1996 has indicated in respect of top air deck, the requirement of minimum air-deck length to benet fragmentation but has not specied its upper limit. The minimum air deck length has been dened as the one at which the loss due to weakening of primary loading is just compensated by the gain from secondary loading. Mid column air-decks have been indicated to produce better results on account of interaction of two shock fronts emanating from two charge ends than the top and the bottom column decks (Moxon et al. 1993). This is not in line with the observations by Liu and Katsabanis (1996) that mid-column air deck has no special benets over top of column air decks. The theoretical and model studies indicate that the presence of an air-deck at the top of explosive column allows the stemming and air-deck regions to experience reinforced loading due to the interaction of shock wave, thus enhances rock breakage in these regions. Similar phenomena is expected to occur upon the interaction of shock wave with hole bottom in the case of bottom airdeck also. Since the hole bottom experiences high degree of connement and requires maximum stresses to cause adequate toe breakage. It is for these reasons that the bottom air deck is not suggested in the normal circumstances, however, it can be benecially used in the soft bottom conditions. As regards the effectiveness of air-deck blasting in practical blasting situations, this review reveals that the technique allows even distribution of explosive in the bore hole and has a high potential in improving fragmentation through better energy utilization mainly in soft and medium strong rock masses. The technique has found its applications also in presplitting, controlling ground vibration, overbreak etc.

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The author feels that this technique is more suitable in highly jointed (the individual rock type may be strong), soft and medium strength rock types which require less amount of shock energy and more of gas energy i.e. situations where blasting is required to induce little additional cracks and to shake the rock mass for heaving only. As the mechanism involves the interaction of two gas fronts leading to a reinforced stress eld and explosive action for a prolonged period, this basic phenomenon thus must help in almost all blasting situations. The techno-economic feasibility of this technique was found to be governed by the rock mass structure, air-deck size and the desired blast results besides other design parameters. In the case of a medium strength and sparsely jointed overburden rocks, if the blasted muck is worked by a larger bucket size, the resulting fragmentation is not of much concern for the systems productivity and thus long air-deck could be used and if the blasted muck is loaded by a small bucket size, the concern for fragmentation overrides other considerations and hence air-deck length has to be cautiously selected. Still, some generalizations can be made as to the reasonable range of air deck length.

lengths appropriate to different rock mass blasting situations. Mid-column air-deck is preferred over top and bottom air-decks for general applications. Top air deck may be used to cause adequate breakage in the stemming regions. Bottom air deck is generally not suggested except in the case of soft bottom regions. The overall blast performance increases in airdeck blasting with improvements in blast-induced fragmentation, loading equipment productivity, economics etc. For routine blasting operations, it is expected to provide best results in soft, highly jointed or medium strong rock types.
Acknowledgments The author is thankful to Dr. A. Sinha, Director, Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, Dhanbad (India). Thanks are due to (Late) Dr. A. K. Chakraborty for his keen interest and kind help on this subject. The views expressed in this paper are, however of the authors and not necessarily of the institute he belongs to.

References
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6 Conclusions The following conclusions are drawn from this review: The presence of air gap in blast hole induces a change in the mechanism of explosive energy transfer to the surrounding rock mass. The energy transfer in this case takes place in a series of pulses rather than instantly, this increases the time period over which explosive energy acts over the rock mass. A clear understanding of the mechanism involved, the physical processes and their effects on the degree of fragmentation is yet to emerge to fully explain the blast effects and to formulate a theoretical basis for practical designs using air-decks. The air deck length is a crucial parameter in this technique and needs to be selected judiciously. The reasonable length may differ for different rock types and blasting applications. Some generalisations, however can still be made as regards the optimum range. The ADL based on the present knowledge varies from 0.1 to 0.35. Further eld studies are needed to derive practical guidelines on air-deck

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Geotech Geol Eng (2011) 29:651663 Jhanwar JC, Jethwa JL, Reddy AH (2000) Inuence of air-deck blasting on fragmentation in jointed rocks in an openpit manganese mine. Eng Geol 57:1329 Kinney GF, Graham KJ (1985) Explosive shocks in air. Springer, New York, pp 80106 Liu L, Katsabanis PD (1996) Numerical modeling of the effects of air decking/decoupling in production and controlled blasting. In: Mohanty (ed) Proceeding 5th international conference on rock fragmentation by blasting. A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, p. 319330 Lu W, Hustrulid W (2003) A further study on the mechanism of air-decking. Fragblast 7(4):231255 Marchenko LN (1982) Raising the efciency of a blast in rock crushing. Fiziko-Tekhnicheskie Problemy Razrabotki Poleznykh Iskopaemykh. Sov Min Sci 18(5):16 Mead DJ, Moxon NT, Danell RE, Richardson SB (1993) The use of air-decks in production blasting. In: Proceedings of the 19th annual conference on explosives and blasting technique, international society of explosives engineers, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, pp. 219226 MelNikov NV (1940) Utilisation of energy of explosives and fragment size of rock in blasting operations, Gorn. Zh. No.5 MelNikov NV, Marchenko LN (1971) Effective methods of application of explosive energy in mining and construction. In: Twelfth symposium on dynamic rock mechanics. AIME, New York, pp. 350378 MelNikov NV, Marchenko LN, Seinov NP, Zharikov IF (1979) A method of enhanced rock blasting by blasting, IPKON AN SSSR, Moscow, Translated from Fiziko-Tekhnicheskie

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