Rock Fragmentation by Blasting – Sanchidrián (ed)

© 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-48296-7

Application of heavy ANFO explosives in quarries

nearby Istanbul

T. Hüdaverdi, E. Guclu & C. Kuzu

Mining Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

ABSTRACT: Drillholes which are full of water are always a great problem for blasting efficiency. Water
brings out the problem of inefficient usage of explosive energy. In watery rock mass, Heavy ANFO, emul-
sion or slurry type explosives are used instead of conventional ANFO. In the quarries operated nearby
Istanbul, water in rock mass is affecting the blasting efficiency in a negative way. So the particle size
distribution is coarser than expected and amount of big blocks in muckpile is high. In the studied quarry
Heavy ANFO is applied to use explosive energy properly. In the quarry, different blasts carried out using
ANFO and Heavy ANFO are investigated. These blasts are evaluated in terms of the blasting techniques
and the results are compared. During the evaluation of blasting results, visual analysis is done pre-blast
and after blast, but also image analysis software is used. The discontinuity properties of benches are evalu-
ated by image processing software before blasting. The image analysis software which is used for evalua-
tion of discontinuities determines the in-situ block size, joint frequency and orientation. After blasting,
image processing software is used to determine the particle size distribution.

1 INTRODUCTION When ammonium nitrate is used and water

content reaches approximately 9%, it’s question-
Istanbul is a rapidly growing city with its 13 million able whether the ammonium nitrate will detonate.
population, so building sector needs a huge amount Figure 1 indicates the effect of water content on the
of raw material. Main raw materials for this sector performance of ammonium nitrate. As water con-
are provided from the quarries nearby northern tent increases, detonation velocity and explosive
Istanbul for the European side of the city. Efficient efficiency decreases. When ANFO is used in an
blasting operation and suitable particle size distri- atmospheric condition with more than 10% humid-
bution for crushers are very important parameters ity, a structural alteration that may stop detonation
for the productivity enhancement in the quarries. occurs. (Konya & Walter 1989). The water resist-
In the quarries located in northern Istanbul, one ances of different types of explosives are given in
of the major problem effects blasting efficiency Table 1.
is the presence of water in the drill holes. Water
resistant explosives should be used in wet holes.
The water resistance of an explosive is defined as
a product’s ability to withstand water penetration
or desensitization by water. Commercial explosives
differ widely in their ability to resist the effect
of water penetration. Ammonium nitrate/fuel
mixtures have no inherent water resistance, because
of their solubility in water. The packaged ANFO
products depend on their packaging to resist water
penetration. When using products with minimal
water resistance, it’s recommended that the blast
be detonated as soon as possible after loading the
explosives. Today’s emulsion/ANFO blend explo-
sives have a range of water resistances. Water resist-
ance ability changes between little resistance for
low percentage blends (30% emulsion/70% ANFO)
to very good resistance with high percentage Figure 1. The effect of water content on the perform-
blends (80% emulsion/20% ANFO, Hopler 1998). ance of ammonium nitrate (Konya & Walter 1989).

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 Table 1. Water resistance of explosives.
Type Resistance
Granular dynamite Poor to good
Gelatin dynamite Good to excellent
Cartridged slurry Very good
Bulk Slurry Very Good
Air-emplaced ANFO Poor
Poured ANFO Poor
Packaged ANFO Very good*
Heavy ANFO Poor to very good
* Becomes poor if package is broken.
Heavy ANFO is the mixture of ammonium
nitrate prills, fuel oil and emulsions. Heavy ANFO
can be mixed at the blast hole and quickly loaded
into the hole. The amount of slurry mixed with
the ANFO can be changed to offer either higher
energy or high water resistance.
In the studied quarry particle size distribution
is coarser than expected and big boulders occur
after blasting. Usage of the heavy ANFO instead
of ANFO in watery holes was decided to increase
blasting efficiency. So, we have the opportunity of
comparing performance of the heavy ANFO and
ANFO in terms of fragmentation.
2 DESCRIPTION AND GEOLOGY
OF THE SITE
The quarry is located at the European side of the
city called Cendere Region. There are many quar-
ries in this region next to each other. This study
is realized in Akdaglar Quarry. The rock in the
quarry is sandstone. The quarry produces aggre-
gate for concrete and asphalt plants. Production
capacity of the quarry is 5000 ton/day.
Electrical firing is applied at Akdaglar Quarry.
The diameter of the drill holes is 89 mm. The
number of the holes varies from 10 to 20 and gen-
erally the distances between holes are 2–3 m. The
height of the benches is 7 m and 0.5 m subdrilling
is applied. Primer explosive is emulsion type. The
primer is placed at the bottom of the hole. When
the benches are too high an additional primer
explosive is placed under stemming. Drill hole cut-
tings are used for stemming. After blasting, muck
is transported with trucks and the big boulders are
crashed with hydraulic excavators. A perspective
view of the quarry is given in Figure 2.
The formation of Cendere Region where inves-
tigation was done is called Trakya Formation that
commonly contains sandstone. Trakya forma-
tion represents Carboniferous aged, fragmented
112
Figure 2. Perspective view of the quarry.
sediments. Generally, it is observed at the European
Side of Istanbul.
Trakya Formation was deformed, folded and
fragmented by joint systems in different locations
during Hercynian and Alpine Orogenic periods.
The thicknesses of sedimentary rocks which form
Trakya Formation are between 5 cm and 50 cm. In
some parts especially for sandstones, the thickness
reaches 50 to 100 cm.
Sixty percent of the sandstone is formed by
silicon. Density of the rock is 2.70 kg/cm3. Mohr’s
hardness value is 5–6. Average porosity value is
1.03%. The compressive strength is 822–829 kg/cm2
and average tensile strength is 57.08 kg/cm2. Elastic
modulus is 16.9 GPa.
3 FIELD STUDIES
The particle size distribution is very important for
quarries to achieve efficient transportation and less
energy consumption in crushing. Some research-
ers suggest ‘mine to mill blasting’ approach. “The
mine to mill blasting approach identifying the
leverage that blast results have on different down-
stream processes and then optimizing the blast
design to achieve the results that maximize the
overall profitability rather than individual opera-
tions” (Grundstrom et al. 2001). Efficient blasting
improves the loader productivity and increases the
truck and bucket fill factors. Also it increases the
material passes through the crusher because of the
change in muckpile size distribution. Finally, proper
and uniform size distribution reduces the energy
consumption during crushing and grinding.
Blasting is a transformation from the state of in
situ block size distribution to the state of blasted
block size distribution. The transforming energy
is provided by detonated explosive (Latham & Lu
1999). This transition is represented in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Transformation from in situ block size distri-
bution to blasted block size distribution.
Fragmentation index can be used to observe
blasting efficiency in the studied quarry. Aler,
Jhanwar and coworkers used fragmentation index
in order to measure the fragmentation efficiency
(Aler et al. 1996, Jhanwar et al. 2000).The frag-
mentation index is defined as the ratio of the in
situ block size and the blasted block size. Similarly
we calculate the blasting efficiency by dividing the
average in situ block size to average particle size of
muck pile like as;
shows the bench of the Blast H1 which is used in
Table 2.
During taking photograph for image processing
of the bench face, it must be avoided the inclined
images caused by inaccurate holding of camera.
It will be useful if the observer takes photo of all
face at once. But it may be very hard to take photo
at once if the face is wide. The closeness and dis-
tance would affect resolution. The photos should
be taken under direct sunlight. Shadows create
problem during image processing by software.
The efficiency of software is better if the fractures
are in same direction. As the number of fractures
increases, the success of program decrease so man-
ual intervention should be needed. It’s easier to
determine the fracture traces by the image process-
ing software when traces are distinctive. If the joint
aperture is wide, image processing software defines
the fractures easier. Figure 5 shows the apparent
blocks determined by the software on the bench
face of the Blast H1.
The software paints each block with different
colors. Figure 6 shows block size distribution of
the bench of the Blast H1.

Fragmentation index = D50inb/D50muckpile (1)

Here, D50inb is average in-situ block size and

D50muckpile is the average particle size of muckpile.
We used Wipjoint and Wipfrag image process-
ing software for each blast and gathered the block
size distributions before and after the blasts. After
that, we determined fragmentation index for each
blast to compare the blasts performed using Heavy
ANFO and ANFO.
There are several studies performed to determine
the discontinuities by the way of image processing.
Maerz (1990) defined two dimensional numeri-
cal images as a coordinate plane and he tried to
determine the discontinuities by using tones of
gray color. Reid & Harrison (2000) developed a Figure 4. The bench of Blast H1.
semi automated method to determine disconti-
nuity traces. In this method, tones of gray color Table 2. The specifications ANFO and Heavy ANFO.
were used and each fracture trace was evaluated
as a different object. Split FX is a software devel- ANFO Heavy ANFO
oped by Kemeny and co-workers. Kemeny et al.
(2006) scanned the bench face by laser and then he Ideal detonation 4850 m/s 6384 m/s
obtained three dimensional images and imported velocity
them to Split FX. Fracture clusters can be placed Ideal detonation 48960 atm 115890 atm
on stereonet by the help of this software. pressure
The Wipjoint software was used to perform frac- Ideal detonation 2946º K 2388º K
temperature
ture analysis by image processing and determine
Detonation velocity 4000–4200 m/s 4300–4500 m/s
the fracture orientation. It also determines vari- (125 mm cartridge)
ation of joint spacing for 18 different directions. Detonation energy 3.89 MJ/kg 3.20 MJ/kg
The software performs joint analysis and apparent Density 0.78–0.80 gr/cm3 1.26–1.27 gr/cm3
block size distribution analysis automatically. The Water resistance No Excellent
software also allows manual corrections. Figure 4

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Figure 5. The blocks determined for the bench face of
Blast H1.
didn’t change the results of the image analysis sig-
nificantly. For our case, four images were sufficient
for image analysis. In Figure 7, four images taken
from the muckpile of the Blast H1 are represented.
After image processing by the software, we get the
particle size distribution of Blast H1 as shown in
Figure 8.
After the particle size analysis with the software,
corrections may be done based on Rosin-Rammler
or Swebrec functions. Software defines two correc-
tion factors which are called Fn and Fxc to correct
uniformity index ‘n’ and characteristic size ‘Xc’
(Maerz & Zhou 2000.)
The density of Heavy ANFO used in quarry is
between 1.26–1.27 gr/cm3. Heavy ANFO is a reg-
istered product it is not possible to get the exact
composition of Heavy ANFO. Table 2 shows the
specifications of the ANFO and the Heavy ANFO.
Table 3 shows eight blasts carried out in the
quarry. Blast design parameters, joint spacing

Figure 6. Block size distribution of the bench of

Blast H1.

Particle size distribution of the blasts is

determined by the Wipfrag image processing soft-
ware. When taking a photograph of the muckpile, Figure 7. Four images captured from muckpile of
sampling location is very important. A muckpile is Blast H1.
heterogeneous with respect to fragment size. There
may be some sort of gravitational segregation. The
particle size distribution can be more uniform at
the one side of the muckpile than the other side or
big blocks may occur in some part of the muck-
pile. During sampling, user caused mistakes were
minimized.
Generally, increasing of the number of the images
captured from a muckpile results in an increase of
the accuracy of the particle size distribution. In
the quarry, four different images were captured
for each muckpile. These images were analyzed
and the results were combined. Digital cameras
enable capturing of numerous images of muckpile.
The image analysis software enables analyzing of
images rapidly. More than four images analyzed for
some blasts. However, increase of image number Figure 8. Particle size distribution of the H1.

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Table 3. Blasting parameters and fragmentation index.

Charge
Blast B S D H L T U PF height Number JS D50inb D50mkp
no (m) (m) (mm) (m) (m) (m) (m) (kg/m3) (m) of holes (m) (m) (cm) FI

A1 2.2 2.5 89 7.0 7.5 2.5 0.5 0.69 5 23 0.8 0.93 16.45 5.65
A2 2.2 2.5 89 7.0 7.5 2.5 0.5 0.69 5 16 0.8 1.15 17.25 6.67
A3 2.0 2.5 89 6.5 7.0 2.5 0.5 0.71 4.5 13 0.96 1.32 21.12 6.25
A4 2.2 2.7 89 5.5 6.0 2.5 0.5 0.57 3.5 12 0.73 1.26 17.37 7.25
H1 2.2 2.5 89 7.0 7.5 2.5 0.5 0.69 5 22 1.06 2.01 19.65 10.23
H2 2.5 2.8 89 7.0 7.5 2.5 0.5 0.54 5 23 0.78 1.24 15.17 8.17
H3 2.0 2.5 89 7.0 7.5 2.5 0.5 0.75 5 14 0.52 1.13 14.43 7.83
H4 2.2 2.7 89 5.5 6.0 2.5 0.5 0.57 3.5 13 1.17 1.86 20.71 8.98

B: Burden, S: Spacing, D: Hole Diameter, H: Bench Height, L: Hole Length, T: Stemming, U: Subdrilling, PF: Specific
Charge, JS: Joint Spacing, D50inb: Average apparent in-situ block size, D50mkp: Average particle size of muck pile, FI:
Fragmentation index.

value, in-situ block size, average particle size of
the muckpile and fragmentation index are pre-
sented for each blast. In the table, the first four
blasts indicated with ‘A’ symbol are performed by
ANFO. Last four blasts indicated with ‘H’ symbol
are performed by Heavy ANFO.
Holes were drilled as staggered two rows and
the inclination of the holes is 90°. The specific
charges of the blasts vary between 0.57 kg/m3 to
0.75 kg/m3. During calculation of the fragmenta-
tion index, D50inb: (average in-situ block size) is
converted to cm. Fragmentation index is higher
in the blasts which heavy ANFO is used. In other
words, the size reduction factor is increased. If we
calculate the arithmetic mean of the fragmenta-
tion sizes in both of the groups, we can see that
fragmentation index is increased 36% for the
blasts performed by heavy ANFO. Joint spacing
(JS) is measured by line sampling method. Line
sampling is carried out horizontally and vertically
on the face. The arithmetic mean of the vertical
and horizontal joint spacing values is taken into
consideration to avoid sampling errors depend-
ing on directions. Also, Wipjoint software exe-
cutes the change in fracture frequency due to the
directions.
4 CONCLUSIONS
is denser than ANFO. Detonation velocity and
detonation pressure of heavy ANFO are higher
than ANFO. For our cases, change of explosive
helped better fragmentation. However, change of
the explosive was a secondary factor that effects
the particle size distribution. Here, usage of heavy
ANFO instead of ANFO will increase the costs
slightly. Nevertheless, the increase in efficiency
of loading and crushing operations after blasting
renders the increase of the explosive cost unim-
portant. Especially, it is unavoidable to use heavy
ANFO in wet holes. The number of boulders which
are the blocks larger than one meter diameter was
followed during measurements. After blasting
the boulders are carried to a suitable place to be
crushed by excavator. This means increase in oper-
ational costs and time loss. It was observed that
there was a 21% decrease of the amount of boul-
ders after the blasts in which heavy ANFO was
used. It is important to determine discontinuity
structure in different parts of quarry for maximum
efficiency. If blasting pattern accommodates to the
discontinuity structure for each face, the optimum
particle size distribution can be obtained. In this
study, the classical method (line sampling) and
image processing method were used together. As
the image processing techniques develop further,
we think that fracture analysis by image processing
will be used more efficiently.

It is apparent that explosive and rock coupling

increases the blasting efficiency. The water content
of the holes causes detonation failure of ANFO.
Detonation failure is the main reason of the poor
fragmentation. The usage of the heavy ANFO
eliminates detonation failure and results in bet-
ter fragmentation. Additionally, Heavy ANFO
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