Search Documents

By ATF Publications

The following is a summary of the changes that were incorporated into the new Federal Explosives Regulations, 27 CFR Part 55, dated 9/2000. However, in light of the recent events of September 2001, additional changes in the Federal Explosives Laws and Regulations may be forthcoming. The nature and extent of any such potential changes are impossible to gauge at this time. However, this synopsis of the changes contained in the September 2000 Orange Book, ATF P 5400.7 was current at the time of this writing. Any questions regarding this paper should be directed to the Public Safety Branch in ATF Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Jan 1, 2002

By Greg Parker

"As the Explosives Industry continues to evolve and condense, those involved, such as Blasters,Contractors, Distributors and Consultants, continue to be challenged by both internal and externalforces. Increased pressure by government agencies, higher safety standards, new levels of technology and mandatory certification programs, are forcing us to expand our awareness and increase our levels of efficiency. These higher standards require increased awareness. Increased awareness requires better training programs and better supervision with emphasis on production and the employee. This means the desire to improve must be instilled from the top down. this paper will explore the current impediments to this goal and discuss the possible solutions for achieving greater safety awareness, increased production and higher levels of personal achievement. Through the use of audio/visual aids, I will attempt to show the discrepancies as well as the solutions."

Jan 1, 1999

By John Brennan

OK, I’ll admit it: I’ve always been a big Monty Atwater fan. Not only is the man credited with being the father of modern avalanche forecasting and safety in the United States, but he is also responsible for developing the avalauncher. Through its more than 40-year history, the avalauncher has gone through many changes yet continues to prove its worth in avalanche mitigation work.

Jan 1, 2007

By Jack Eloranta

To improve control of blasting, tests were performed to assess non-electric cap accuracy. Simultaneous testing using a Velocity of Detonation Recorder (VODR), Red Lake Lo-Cam and an Instantel DS-677 blast monitor was done. Favorable comparisons were found in the three records . This testing confirmed the accuracy of an inexpensive and expedient cap testing procedure.

Jan 1, 1992

By Robert Hopler

Earthquakes, ground vibrations, seisms, or whatever you want to call the shaking of the earth, have been a fact of life throughout time. In spite of this, most people (except those unfortunate enough to live in seismicallyactive areas) have probably never felt this phenomenon, or if they have, only a very few times in their entire lifetime. However, when it does happen, nothing is more frightening than the sudden shaking of the earth beneath us - after all, we think of the ground we walk on as the unyielding, solid underpinning of our existence.

Jan 1, 2006

By Dale Ramsey

Emulsion explosives have become the product of choice for many blasting applications and are not limited to just extreme wet hole conditions or special application environments as in the past. Today’s novel emulsion technology has evolved over many decades, allowing a great diversity of formulations, Emulsion explosives can be effectively designed to produce very high energies, cap sensitive high explosive cartridges to bulk blasting agents, with varying viscosities, stable VOD’s, excellent water resistance, long shelf life and sleep time. They are also conducive to the mixture of emulsion, An/F0 blends in varying proportions and are amenable to any type of sensitizer. The key to a stable, reliable and consistent emulsion formulation is the careful mixing of the internal phase, which consists of a solution of oxidizer salts suspended as microscopically fine droplets, with the surrounding continuous fuel phase. There are few blasting applications today where some form of an emulsion explosive cannot fit the application. In massive, hard rock, dense, tightly jointed and fine grained rock types, the emulsion explosives are the best choices in creating new fracture networks for good fragmentation with a few alternatives. In such environments, emulsions with expanded drill patterns often result in better economics than the use of straight AnLFo. This paper will cover emulsion formulations, sensitizing options, product testing, material handling, and blast optimization, Emulsion explosives characteristics have also proven to reduce adverse environmental effects such as noxious fumes, ground vibration, and airblast while still remaining cost effective.

Jan 1, 2000

By Don Bachman, Larry Heywood

Artificial release of snow avalanches, through the use of explosives, is a necessary component of safety planning and operations for ski areas throughout the Western United States, as well as in other alpine regions of the world. Climatic, meteorological and terrain factors leading to the development of avalanche conditions, in addition to release mechanisms and magnitude of the avalanche problem to ski areas will be discussed.

Jan 1, 1999

By R. Singh, M. Roy, D. Singh

Success of a blasting pattern in Blasting-off-the-solid (BOS) in Bord (Room) & Pillar method of coal mining is judged by the percentage of pull achieved vis-à-vis the yield of coal produced in a blasted round. Improper blast design and distribution of explosives in shot holes normally causes poor breakage i.e. a major portion of shot holes left unbroken resulting into reduced yield per blast. Over and above the disturbance to the roof is also due to excessive vibration caused by explosive energy not properly utilized in fragmentation.

Jan 1, 2003

By Brian W. Stump, David P. Anderson

Identification of seismic events detected under a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty requires a clear physical understanding of the different types of seismic sources including mining explosions, rock bursts, mine collapse and small, shallow earthquakes. Constraint of the operative physical processes in the source region and linkage to the generation of seismic waveforms with particular emphasis on regional seismograms is needed. In order to properly address the multi-dimensional aspect of data sets designed to constrain these sources, we are investigating a number of modern visualization tools that have only recently become available with new, highspeed graphical computers that can utilize relatively large data sets. The results of this study will provide a basis for identifying important physical processes in the source region that contribute to regional seismograms.

Jan 1, 1995

By Rob Farnfield, Yuill Gavin

The rock blasting industry continues to be under pressure to reduce the level of vibration induced by the use of explosives. In recent years much research and development has been directed to minimizing vibration levels by controlling the delay period between blast holes. The most commonly applied technique is known as Linear Superposition. This technique takes the vibration produced from a single-hole test shot and simulates the vibration that would be produced from a full-scale production blast. The simulation can be run with various delay periods and the optimum delay chosen. The success of the Linear Superposition technique depends to a great extent on having accurate delay detonators and on the single-hole test shot reliably indicating the vibration signal produced from each hole in a production blast. A quarry-based case study is given illustrating how these assumptions are not always valid. In this case the use of electronic detonators has controlled frequency but not vibration level. The paper goes on to describe a series of single-hole test shots in an U.K. limestone quarry. The vibration 2 signals recorded are examined in terms of variations in free-face provision, blast geometry, explosive properties, etc.

Jan 1, 2001

By Paul Sterk

In underground mining a great deal of time, money, effort, and resources have been used in the effort to minimize blast-induced damage. This damage occurs to the back, ribs, and pillars when the energy of the explosive is released back into the rock due to over confinement or the overloading of explosives in the perimeter holes. This damage can result in roof falls, dilution of ore, excessive rock bolting, scaling, screening, shot-creteing and other safety and support issues.

Jan 1, 2003

By Jerry Wallace

A highway bridge demolition project to allow shipping access to a new container port in Puget Sound ran into trouble when contract-stipulated mechanical means of demolition failed. Blasting was then employed under less than ideal conditions and was successful.

Jan 1, 1999

By David P. Reddick

Economics is a social science dealing with the allocation of scarce resources. In modern times the “science” was identified by Adam Smith in his book, The Wealth of Nations, written in 1776. Mr.Smith, highly influenced by the Mercantilists of the 17th and 18th centuries, identified the “Invisible Hand” which would lead every individual to pursue selfish rewards in purchasing goods. He speculated these selfish motives would result in the best good for all. Price would be determined by barter, at a point where self-centered customers and vendors were mutually satisfied. Today, Smith’s theory is known throughout the world as “Capitalism” but most often termed “Free Enterprise” in the United States.

Jan 1, 1992

By P Geddes, K Grohs, C K. McKenzie, M Morrish

Low grade surface gold mining at the Acacia Resources, Union Reefs Gold Mine in Australia's Northern Territory, involves the excavation of benches in three slices after blasting. Blast patterns span zones of high and low grade ore, as well as zones of waste, and selective excavation is required in order to maintain economical head grades for the carbon-in-leach processing plant.

Jan 1, 1998

I attended a funeral in West Monroe, Louisiana, for one of the best powder peddlers I’ve ever known. He started work in 1948 for Dixie Dynamite, a seismograph explosive distributor. His first job was as a truck driver, then magazine keeper and then sales re p re s e n t a t i v e . When Dixie Dynamite quit, he acted as an explosives sales agent for sometime before moving on to Kansas to be a sales rep for a distributor there. We called him the “ragin cajun” long before James Carville came on the national scene messing up things. While he was born in G e o rgia, he was a Cajun at heart. I don’t believe the old saying, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” To me, the best products in the world need to be sold. Two examples of this are the Beta system for TV and the Apple Macintosh computers. Beta is the best system but VHS took over because the Beta people fell down on the selling job. Windows 98 is Macintosh ‘86 but again the engineers were not salesmen. Marion “Johnny” Johnson who was buried only about a half mile from his first magazine site proved that good selling is good citizenship. He could have sold any firstclass product, for he wouldn’t tolerate inferior items, and made a successful career of it, but he chose dynamite and the industry benefited from his talents.

Jan 1, 2004

By Ian R. Firth

For the majority of open pit precious metal mines in the western United States, grade control practices have evolved as a direct result of the variable geology of the ore body and the lack of a clear visual or geologic distinction between ore and waste material. These practices often include the extensive use of buffer or choke blasting, in an attempt to minimize lateral movement of the muckpile. The Mackay School of Mines is conducting ongoing research, which aims to develop a practical method of measuring the movement of discrete “targets” placed within the body of the blast. The movement experienced by these targets can then be used to interpolate the movement of the blast as a whole. Typically, the boundaries between different material types are known as digging limits or polygons and are marked using colored flagging on the muckpile. If material movement can be measured using targets placed in the blast, these digging limits can be altered to reflect the blast-induced rock movement, reducing dilution and improving value recovery.

Jan 1, 2002

By Harry Verakis, Thomas Lobb

In the past decade, approximately 5 billion pounds of explosives were used annually in the United States. Most of this quantity of explosives was used by the mining industry and coal mining was the dominant application for explosives. Considering the large amount of explosives used, the accident safety record for the mining industry has improved significantly over the past two decades. Blasting accidents are usually a small percentage of the total number of mining accidents. However, blasting accidents continue to occur and the severity of these accidents is disproportionately high with respect to other types of mining accidents. This paper is a summary and an update of the surface mine blasting accident investigations and studies conducted previously by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the former U.S. Bureau of Mines.

Jan 1, 2001

By Michael F. Barber

"Highway slopes are intended to remain stable over a long period of time. Unexpected slope failures can be costly in terms of human life and property damage or loss. Cleanup of failures can prove to beextremely expensive."

Jan 1, 1999

By Aloke Verma, R. Singh, S. Jana, C. Sawmliana, P. Pal Roy

On July 21, 2004, a trial blast using electronic detonators was conducted in India for the first time in an opencast mine at Pundi-E Quarry of TISCO, West Bokaro. Orica-IEL conducted the test using electronic detonators. To provide necessary technical feedback on wider applicability, CMRI scientists also participated in the trial blast.

Jan 1, 2006

By Nick Lewis, Paulo Pereira

The Vulcan McCook quarry has been in operation for about 100 years. It is located about 17 miles from downtown Chicago and is surrounded by both industrial and private structures. Recent issues have forced the quarry to blast very close to structures and this will be necessary years into the future. This paper discusses the implementation of electronic detonators to McCook. It also discusses the advantages and savings that the Program has achieved

Jan 1, 2003