Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643

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Expert Systems with Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

Prediction of backbreak in open-pit blasting using fuzzy set theory

M. Monjezi *, M. Rezaei, A. Yazdian
Faculty of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Although blasting is the most principal method of fragmentation in hard rock mining, the significance of
Backbreak the costs of blast induced rockmass damage in terms of mining efficiency and safety is becoming increas-
Regression model ingly recognized. Backbreak is one of the adverse phenomena in blasting operations that causes the insta-
Fuzzy model bility of mine walls, falling down of equipments, improper fragmentation, reduced efficiency of drilling,
Gol-E-Gohar iron mine
etc., and consequently increases the total cost of a mining operation. In this paper, predictive models
based on fuzzy set theory and multivariable regression have been developed for predicting backbreak
in Gol-E-Gohar iron mine of Iran. To evaluate performance of the employed models, the coefficient of cor-
relation (R2) and the root mean square error (RMSE) indices were calculated. It was concluded that per-
formance of the fuzzy model is considerably better than regression model. For the fuzzy and regression
models, R2 and RMSE were equal to 95.43% and 0.44 and 34.08% and 1.63, respectively. The fuzzy model
sensitivity analysis shows that the most effective parameters on backbreak phenomenon are stemming
length, hole depth, burden and hole spacing. Application of this model in the Gol-E-Gohar iron mine con-
siderably minimized backbreak and improved blasting efficiency.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction fragmentation, decreasing backbreak, suitable muck pile profile,

Backbreak due to blasting operation has a significant impact on
slope stability. This undesirable phenomenon can be defined as
limit of damaged rocks beyond the last row of production holes (Ji-
meno, Jimeno, & Carcedo, 1995). Bauer (1982) noted that, if back-
break is not controlled, a decrease in the overall pit-slope angle
would definitely be necessary which in turn cause increasing of
stripping ratio. Greater amounts of loose face rock would be pro-
duced and planned safety berms would be less effective. Because
of destructive consequences of backbreak there would be a
considerable increase in the total production costs (Scoble, Lizotte,
Paventi, & Mohanty, 1997).
In order to identify parameters that may influence the intensity
of backbreak, many studies have been performed by various
researchers (Jenkins, 1981; Konya & Walter, 1991; Monjezi & Deh-
ghani, 2008). Konya (2003) believes that backbreak increases when
burden and/or stemming increases. Gate, Ortiz, and Florez (2005)
thinks that the main reason of backbreak is insufficient delay tim-
ing and/or increasing number of blasting rows.
To avoid backbreak, different parameters such as physico-
mechanical properties of rockmass, explosives properties and geo-
metrical features of the blasting pattern should be considered. In
the past, empirical models were developed for the blast design
aiming to arrive at necessary requirements such as proper
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 2182884312.
E-mail address: monjezi@modares.ac.ir (M. Monjezi).
reducing boulders, etc. However, in such models there is no a
straightforward way of predicting backbreak. Also, in the empirical
models only some of the effective parameters of blasting operation
are accounted for. Considering the above shortcomings of available
empirical methods, new solution of fuzzy set theory, a branch of
artificial intelligence, may suitably cover all the requirements of
predicting backbreak.
Fuzzy model can cope with the complexity of complicated and
ill-defined systems in a flexible and reliable way (Iphar & Goktan,
2006). In the last two decades, an increase of implementation of
this technique has been observed in the field of mining sciences.
Chuang (1995) proposed a fuzzy model bridging the discrepancy
between the values of in situ shear strengths of soils and labora-
tory test results. Similarly, Habibagahi and Katebi (1996) employed
this method to develop a rockmass classification maintaining Bie-
niawski classification principles. A same attempt was made by
Nguyen and Ashworth (1985) keeping the structure of CSIR classi-
fication. Mishnaevsky and Schmauder (1996) showed that fuzzy
set theory could efficiently be applied to examine the damage evo-
lution in heterogeneous rocks. Cebesoy (1997) and Bascetin (1999)
used fuzzy technique for the selection of surface mine equipments.
Jiang, Park, Deb, and Sanford (1997) applied this approach to char-
acterize roof conditions in longwall mining. A fuzzy reasoning sys-
tem was developed by Huang and Siller (1997) for geotechnical site
characterization of the subsurface conditions. Grima and Babuska
(1999) showed superiority of fuzzy concept over multivariable
regression analysis in predicting Uniaxial Compressive Strength

0957-4174/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2009.08.014
2638 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643

(UCS) of various rocks. Wu, Hao, and Zhou (1999) employed this oping fuzzy model rule base and the dataset used for examining
method to describe the damage threshold of a rockmass under dy- the results.
namic pressure of explosion. A methodology for slope stability
analysis using fuzzy logic was proposed by Dodagoudar and Venk-
3. Regression analysis
atachalam (2000). Klose (2002) described a simple approach for
geological interpretation of the seismic data utilizing fuzzy meth-
Multivariable regression is an extension of the regression anal-
od. Gokceoglu (2002) suggested a fuzzy triangular chart for the
ysis that incorporates additional independent variables in the pre-
prediction of UCS. Sonmez, Gokceoglu, and Ulusay (2003) applied
dictive equation. Utilizing this method, one can easily determine
fuzzy set theory to the geological strength index (GSI) to overcome
the relationship between the criterion (independent) variables
the uncertainties involved in the characterization of rockmasses.
and the predictive (dependent) variables (Eskandari, Rezaee, &
Den Hartog et al. (1997), Grima and Verhoef (1999) used the fuzzy
Mohammadnia, 2004; Jennrich, 1995). This method was utilized
logic approach to predict the performance and bit consumption of
in different mining fields (Finol, Guo, & Dong Jing, 2001; Gokceoglu
rock-cutting trenchers.
& Zorlu, 2004; Grima & Babuska, 1999). Here, backbreak is consid-
In this paper, a new fuzzy model was developed and applied to
ered to be a function of eight parameters i.e., burden, hole spacing,
predict backbreak in blasting operation in Gol-E-Gohar Iron mine
hole depth, specific drilling, stemming length, charge per delay,
of Iran. The simulation results were compared to the results of
rock density and powder factor. The above mentioned database
multivariable regression analysis on the basis of real practical data.
is used to predict backbreak in a blasting operation based on Eq.
(1). The regression model simulation result has been shown in
2. Case study Fig. 1.

The Gol-E-Gohar iron mine is located at 55 km southwest of Sir-
jan between 551150E and 551240E longitudes and 29130 N and
29170 N latitudes. The deposit has been composed of 6 separate
anomalies with an extension of approximately 10 km length and
4 km width. The total ore reserve of the Gol-E-Gohar mine is
1135 million tones.
From the geological viewpoint, the mine is situated in the meta-
morphic rocks of Paleozoic that vertically consist of three parts i.e.,
lower, middle and upper. The lower part consist of successions of
gneiss, micaschist, amphibolite and quartzschist, while the middle
part contains sequences of marble, micaschist, greenschist and
graphitschist and finally the upper is composed of marble, dolo-
mite and calcite.
Blast design parameters of the mine are listed in Table 1. Also,
minimum and maximum values of the applied parameters in the
models and their respected symbols are given in Table 2. It should
be noted that in the blasting operation, drilling cuttings are used as
stemming material and delay time between the first and second
row is 80 ms where as it is 50 ms between the other rows.
Database, collected from blasting operation of the Gol-E-Gohar
iron mine, consists of two datasets viz., the dataset used in devel-
Table 1
Blasting pattern information of the Gol-E-Gohar iron ore mine.
Parameter
Explosive type
Blast hole pattern
Bench height
Hole diameter
Rows per blast
Hole per rows
Backbreak ¼ 10:72 þ 1:467B  0:112S þ 0:05907K
þ 47:28SD þ 0:3328T þ 0:018525Cpd
þ 0:2527D þ 3:105Pf ð1Þ
4. Fuzzy sets
The fuzzy theory started with the concept of fuzziness and its
expression in the form of fuzzy set introduced by Zadeh (1965).
This theory is an extension of the concept of a crisp set. A crisp
set only allows full membership or no membership to every ele-
ment of a universe of discourse, whereas a fuzzy set allows for par-
tial membership (Finol et al., 2001). The process of generating
membership values for a fuzzy variable using membership func-
tions is defined as fuzzification. The shape of the membership func-
tions can be either linear (trapezoidal or triangular) or non-linear
depending on the nature of the problem to be solved (Acaroglu,
Ozdemir, & Asbury, 2008).
The fuzzy set theory provides a systematic calculus to deal with
linguistic terms, and it performs numerical computation by using
linguistic labels stipulated by membership functions. This theory
can also be used for developing rule-based models which combine
expert knowledge and numerical data (Iphar & Goktan, 2006). Za-
deh (1973, 1976) was the first to introduce the idea of analysis and
Description
system modeling using linguistic terms, and since then, it has been
the subject of considerable investigations (Mamdani & Assilian,
ANFO
1975; Dubois & Prade, 1990; Dubois & Prade, 1991). Several
Staggered
15 (m) rule-based fuzzy modeling methods have been proposed in the last
0.203 (m)
2–7
10–20

Table 2
Description of the input and output parameters in the models.

Type of data Parameter Symbol Min Max

Input Burden (m) B 2 6.5
Spacing (m) S 3 8
Hole depth (m) K 5 17.5
Specific Drilling (m/m3) SD 0.019 0.061
Stemming (m) T 2 10
Charge per delay (kg/ms) Cpd 14.7 175.5
Rock density (g/cm3) D 1.85 4.86
Powder factor (kg/ton) Pf 0.13 0.35
Output Backbreak (m) BB 0 10
Fig. 1. Comparison between real and predicted backbreak from the Eq. (1).
 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643 2639

two decades. According to the formation of the subsequent parts
and the inference mechanism to compute the output of the model,
rule-based models can be classified into four main sets: fuzzy rela-
tional models (Pedrycz, 1984), linguistic models (Mamdani & Ass-
ilian, 1975), neural network based models (Jang, 1992; Lin & Lee,
1991), and Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) fuzzy models (Sugeno &
Kang, 1988; Takagi & Sugeno, 1985). There are several fuzzy infer-
ence systems that have been employed in various applications of
these models. The most commonly used are as follows:
 Mamdani algorithm.
 Takagi–Sugeno–Kang fuzzy (TSK) algorithm.
 Tsukamoto algorithm.
 Singleton algorithm.
Gol-E-Gohar iron mine. Fuzzy model process is schematically
shown in Fig. 2. To estimate backbreak, burden, hole spacing, hole
depth, specific drilling, stemming length, charge per delay, rock
density and powder factor are used as input parameters. Fig. 3
shows input and output variables of proposed fuzzy based predic-
tive model.
Normally fuzzification of input/output variables is fulfilled by a
membership function. In this paper, the most common types of
membership functions, triangular and trapezoidal, are used (Huang
& Siller, 1997). Therefore, they were applied for fuzzification the
input and output parameters of the proposed model.
The membership functions of input and output parameters
were abbreviated and shown in the Figs. 4–12. In these member-
ship functions, V stands for very, H for High, M for Medium, L for

It should be mentioned that the consequents of fuzzy rules in

the fuzzy algorithms are not same as each other; therefore, aggre-
gation and defuzzification procedures would also be different
(Gokceoglu, 2002; Grima & Verhoef, 1999; Kayabasi, Gokceoglu,
& Ercanoglu, 2003; Sonmez, Tuncay, & Gokceoglu, 2004; Sonmez
et al., 2003).

4.1. Mamdani fuzzy model

The Mamdani algorithm is one of the most used fuzzy models to

apply in complex engineering geological problems, since most
geological processes are defined with linguistic variables (Acaroglu
et al., 2008). This model takes the following form (Iphar & Goktan,
2006):

If X I is AiI . . . and X r is Air then Y is Bi for I ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; K ð2Þ

Fig. 2. The proposed Fuzzy method block diagram for backbreak Prediction.
XI, Xr: Input variables.
AiI, Air, Bi: Linguistic terms (fuzzy sets).
Y: Output variables.
K: number of rules.

Although many methods of composition of fuzzy relations (e.g.

min–max, max–max, min–min, max–mean, etc.) exist in the liter-
ature, max–min composition is the most commonly used tech-
nique (Ross, 1995). This method of composition is selected for
this study. In this method the rule-based system is described by
this equation:

lCK ðZÞ ¼ max½min½lAK ðinputðxÞÞ; lBK ðinputðyÞÞ K ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; r;

K

ð3Þ

where lC K ; lAK and lBK are the membership functions of output ‘‘z”
for rule ‘‘k”, input ‘‘x” and input ‘‘y”, respectively.
The rules are disjunctive so the aggregation operation max re- Fig. 3. Main structure of the fuzzy model.
sults in an aggregated membership function comprised of the outer
envelope of the individual truncated membership forms from each
rule. If a crisp value is needed for the aggregated output, some
appropriate defuzzification techniques should be employed to
the aggregated membership function (Ross, 1995). Defuzzification
is extraction of a representative crisp value from a fuzzy set. There
exist several defuzzification methods such as centroid of area
(COA), center of gravity, mean of maximum, smallest of maximum,
etc., from which the most commonly adopted is COA method (Gri-
ma, 2000; Hellendoorn & Thomas, 1993).

5. Fuzzy model to predict backbreak

In this study, a new fuzzy model based on the Mamdani algo-

rithm is introduced for backbreak prediction and applied in the Fig. 4. Membership function of burden.
2640 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643

Fig. 5. Membership function of hole spacing. Fig. 9. Membership function of charge per delay.

Fig. 6. Membership function of hole depth.

Fig. 10. Membership function of rock density.

Fig. 7. Membership function of specific drilling.

Fig. 11. Membership function of powder factor.

Fig. 8. Membership function of stemming length.

Fig. 12. Membership function of backbreak.

low. For example VVL is used for very very low, M for medium and
VVH for very very high, etc.
For construction the rule base of fuzzy model, a total of 350
rules were developed which is based on data sets and experts’
experiences. Table 3 shows some samples of fuzzy if–then rules
in the model. These rules are applied to fuzzy inference system
which is based on Mamdani algorithm. To obtain crisp (numeric)
output values, defuzzification is performed by centroid of area
 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643 2641

Table 3
Samples of fuzzy if–then rules.

Rule. no Description of if–then rules

1 If B is VVH and is VVH and K is VH and SD is VVL and T is MH and Cpd is L and D is MH and Pf is M then BB is MH
2 If B is H and S is VH and K is H and SD is VL and T is M and Cpd is VL and D is MH and Pf is MH then BB is MH
3 If B is H and S is H and K is VH and SD is L and T is LM and Cpd is VVL and D is MH and Pf is M then BB is MH
4 If B is VVH and S is VVH and K is MH and SD is VVL and T is LM and Cpd is VVL and D is M and Pf is MH then BB is L
5 If B is H and S is H and K is VH and SD is L and T is M and Cpd is VL and D is MH and Pf is MH then BB is LM
6 If B is MH and S is MH and K is VH and SD is LM and T is VH and Cpd is LM and D is VH and Pf is H then BB is VVVH
7 If B is VVH and S is VVH and K is MH and SD is VVL and T is L and Cpd is VL and D is L and Pf is LM then BB is VL
8 If B is MH and S is MH and K is VH and SD is LM and T is LM and Cpd is LM and D is H and Pf is H then BB is VL
9 If B is MH and S is MH and K is VH and SD is LM and T is LM and Cpd is LM and D is MH and Pf is VH then BB is L
10 If B is H and S is H and K is VH and SD is L and T is M and Cpd is LM and D is MH and Pf is VH then BB is MH
11 B is VVH and S is VVH and K is VH and SD is VVL and T is LM and Cpd is VL and D is M and Pf is M then BB is MH
12 If B is VVH and S is VVH and K is VH and SD is VVL and T is MH and Cpd is LM and D is MH and Pf is M then BB is VH

Fig. 13. Graphical indication of fuzzy reasoning mechanism.

(COA) method (Grima, 2000; Hellendoorn & Thomas, 1993). Fig. 13
shows the rule viewer and fuzzy reasoning mechanism in MATLAB
environment.
The proposed fuzzy model can provide an accurate estimation of
backbreak when proper input data are used. For example, when
input parameters are B = 5.5 m, S = 6.8 m, K = 17 m, SD = 0.028
m/m3, T = 6.2 m, Cpd = 87.2 kg/ms, D = 3.52 g/cm3 and PF = 0.29
kg/ton, model output (backbreak) would be 6.17 m (Fig. 13). Since
the model has the ability of interpolating input parameters, predic-
tion of backbreak can be made in any situations. The fuzzy model
simulation result data has been shown in Fig. 14.
6. Model performance evaluation
To compare the performance of the regression model and the
new fuzzy model, two indexes were considered, coefficient of
correlation R2 and root mean square error (RMSE) (Eqs. (4) and
2642 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643

Fig. 14. Comparison between the real and predicted backbreak for the fuzzy model.
Fig. 16. Strengths of relation (rij) between the backbreak and each input parameter.

Table 4
Performance indexes of the models. Table 5
Strengths value (rij) between the backbreak and each input parameter.
Index Fuzzy model Regression model
R2 95.43% 34.08% Pf D Cpd T SD K S B
RMSE 0.44 1.63 rij 0.882 0.866 0.741 0.903 0.761 0.899 0.884 0.885

X ¼ fX 1 ; X 2 ; X 3 ; . . . X m g ð6Þ

Each of the elements, Xi, in the data array X is a vector of lengths of

m, that is:

X i ¼ fxi1 ; xi2 ; xi3 ; . . . ; xim g1 ð7Þ

Thus, each of the data pairs can be thought of as a point in m-

dimensional space, where each point requires m-coordinates for a
full description. Each element of a relation, rij, results in a pairwise
comparison of two data pairs. The strength of the relation between
the data pairs, xi and xj, is given by the membership value express-
ing the strength:

,vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u m
Fig. 15. Comparison of predicted backbreak with measured. X
m uX X m
rij ¼ xik xjk t x2 ik x2 jk ð8Þ
(5)) (Tzamos & Sofianos, 2006). The models performance indexes k¼1 k¼1 k¼1
were calculated and are summarized in Table 4. For testing the
models 115 data sets which were not incorporated in the model The strengths of relations (rij values) between the backbreak and in-
development were used. put parameters are shown in Fig. 16 and Table 5. As it is shown, the
2 32 most effective parameters on the backbreak are stemming length,
Pn
6 ðA ipred  A pred ÞðA imeas  A meas Þ 7 hole depth, burden and hole spacing.
R2 ¼ 1004qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Pn
i¼1
ffi5 ; ð4Þ
2 Pn 2
i¼1 ðA ipred  A pred Þ i¼1 ðA imeas  A meas Þ
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 8. Conclusions
u n
u1 X
RMSEðAÞ ¼ t ðAimeas  Aipred Þ2 : ð5Þ
n i¼1 The fuzzy inference system having sufficient application flexi-
bility seems to be a suitable measure to minimize the uncertainties
where, Aimeas is the ith measured element, Aipred is the ith predicted encountered during the blasting operations. In this study, a new
element, Aipred and Aimeas are the average of prediction and measured fuzzy model was established to predict backbreak in blasting oper-
sets, respectively, and n is the number of dataset. ation of the Gol-E-Gohar iron mine. The results of the model were
The real and predicted backbreak from both the fuzzy and compared with the results of multivariable regression analysis.
regression models for different patterns, are shown in Fig. 15. It was concluded that performance of the fuzzy model is consid-
The comparison shows the overall superiority of fuzzy based sys- erably better than the statistical model. For the fuzzy model R2 and
tem compared with the regression model. RMSE were equal to 0.95 and 0.44, respectively and for the regres-
sion method they were 0.34 and 1.63, respectively. Lower perfor-
7. Sensitivity analysis mance of the statistical method is probably due to linearity
assumption in this method. Also it was concluded that the most
To recognize the most sensitive factors affecting backbreak co- effective parameters on backbreak phenomenon are stemming
sine amplitude method (CAM) was utilized (Jong & Lee, 2004). To length, hole depth, burden and hole spacing. Application of the re-
apply this method, all of the data pairs are expressed in common sults of this study caused diminishing backbreak and increasing
X-space. The data pairs used to construct a data array X defined as: efficiency in blasting operation of the Gol-E-Gohar iron mine.
 M. Monjezi et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 37 (2010) 2637–2643 2643

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