Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

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Laboratory experiment of stemming impact on rock fragmentation by a high T

explosive
Zong-Xian Zhanga, , De-Feng Houa,b, Ziru Guoc, Zhiwei Hec
⁎

a
Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu, Oulu 90014, Finland
b
College of Resources & Safety Engineering, China University of Mining Technology (Beijing), 100083, China
c
Department of Explosives Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232003, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Ten blasts with cylindrical granite specimens were carried out in four groups with different specific charges and
Rock blasting different constraint conditions. All rock specimens came from a granite quarry and they were cylinders with a
Stemming diameter of 240 mm and a length of 300 mm. Three specific charges—0.2, 0.3 and 0.6 kg/m3 with Research
Energy efficiency Department Explosive (RDX) as a package charge—were used, and two constraint conditions were tested. In the
Fragmentation
first constraint condition the rock specimen had a free surface, but a larger steel tube was placed outside the
Specific charge
specimen; in the second one the specimen had a free surface and there was no steel tube or other obstacle outside
the specimen. Each group included at least one specimen with stemming and at least one without stemming.
During blasting, a high-speed camera was used to film the blasting process, and after each blast all fragments
including fine materials were collected, sieved and analyzed. The results indicated that: (1) stemmed blasts
yielded much better (finer) fragmentation than unstemmed blasts at a constant specific charge, (2) unstemmed
blast wasted at least 25% explosive energy in fragmentation, compared with stemmed blasts, and (3) higher
specific charge resulted in better fragmentation in either stemmed blasts or unstemmed ones.

1. Introduction
Hard rock engineering such as mining and tunnelling requires a
huge amount of explosive energy. Unfortunately, the energy efficiency
of rock blasting is very low (Langefors and Kihlström, 1978;
Ouchterlony et al., 2004; Sanchidrián et al., 2007; Zhang, 2016).
Therefore, it is important to increase the energy efficiency in rock
blasting.
It has been found that stemming takes a great part in the utilization
of explosive energy in rock blasting (Langefors and Kihlström, 1978;
Dally et al., 1975; Fourney et al., 1981; Hagan, 1983; Brinkmann, 1990;
Schmidt and Worsey, 2000; Lownds, 2000; Mencacci and Farnfield
2003; Kojovic, 2005; Zhang, 2016). For instance, Dally et al. (1975)
performed laboratory experiments, showing that the stemmed explosive
charge had increased the energy contained in the stress wave and
produced more and longer radial cracks than the unstemmed charge.
Brinkmann (1990) measured the gas pressure histories at the collars of
blastholes in an underground gold mine and found that with no stem-
ming, the high-speed gases carried away about 50% of the energy
provided by the explosive through the collars. Mencacci and Farnfield
(2003) measured the pressure in the stemming in open pit blasts and
found that the stemming by itself consumed much explosion energy.
Kojovic (2005) reported that the Red Dog mine had identified a benefit
from replacing cuttings by aggregates as stemming, implying that even
stemming material affects blasting result. Zhang (2016) summarized
both positive and negative roles of stemming in rock blasting and de-
scribed how to determine the parameters of stemming in rock blasting.
Unfortunately, up till now stemming has not been widely used in
underground blasts, such as production blasts in underground mining,
blasts in tunnelling and drifting, and blasts in other types of under-
ground space construction using explosives. One of main reasons is that
there has been no quantitative study demonstrating the necessity and
importance of stemming in rock fragmentation that is one of most im-
portant concerns and that is related to not only energy efficiency but
also ore recovery and dilution in mining engineering (Brunton et al.,
2010; Zhang, 2005, 2014a,b, 2016; Zhang and Wimmer, 2018). In other
words, the previous studies on stemming are not sufficient to convince
blasting engineers and operators to use stemming in underground
blasting, in particular, it has not been clear how stemming really affects
rock fragmentation. Thus, it is necessary to investigate the effect of
stemming on rock fragmentation quantitatively.
There are two options to perform such an investigation: one is to

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Zongxian.zhang@oulu.fi (Z.-X. Zhang), defeng.hou@oulu.fi (D.-F. Hou), zrguo@aust.edu.cn (Z. Guo), zhwhe@aust.edu.cn (Z. He).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2019.103257
Received 30 May 2019; Received in revised form 20 August 2019; Accepted 20 December 2019
Available online 10 January 2020
0886-7798/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Z.-X. Zhang, et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257

conduct full-scale field blasts, and the other is to carry out small-scale
model blasts. Because full-scale field blasting is much more expensive
and time-consuming than small-scale model blasting, the latter is often
used in studying rock fracture and fragmentation although it has some
limitations (e.g. Bergman et al., 1973; Chi et al., 2019b,c, 2019a; Dally
et al., 1975; Field and Ladegaard-Pedersen, 1971; Fourney, 2015;
Fourney et al., 1974, 1981, 1993, 2006; He and Yang, 2019; Johansson
and Ouchterlony, 2013; Katsabanis et al., 2006, 2014; Moser and
Grasedieck, 2004; Nie et al., 2000; Nie and Olsson, 2001; Onederra
et al., 2013; Tilert et al., 2007; Rustan, 1995; Sun, 2013). In addition,
the results of small-scale model blasting are necessary for validating
various numerical codes for simulating rock blasting (e.g. Song and
Kim, 1996; Yang et al., 1996; Donzé et al., 1997; Ma and An, 2008; Cho
et al., 2008; Yi et al., 2017; Drover et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2018).
Based on the aforementioned description, ten small-scale model
blasts divided into four groups were carried out to study the stemming
effect on rock fragmentation in this study. In addition, the stemming
effect on gas ejection was investigated by using a high speed camera. In
the last part of the paper, some important issues such as stemming
material and length, material loss, specific charge, and source of fines
were discussed.
2. Experiments
2.1. Rock and explosive properties
The rock specimens used in this study were provided by a granite
quarry owned by Anhui Laoshiren Stone Co. Ltd, China. All specimens
were cylinders with a diameter of 240 mm and a height of 300 mm. The
detailed sizes of the specimens are listed in Table 1. One of the rock
specimens, S2, is shown in Fig. 1. Each specimen from groups A, B and
D (in Table 1) with a low specific charge was put inside a steel tube
(excluding group D), and both the specimen and the tube were placed
on a cubic granite block from the same quarry during blasting. To avoid
a possible break to the granite block, every specimen from group C with
a higher specific charge was placed inside a steel tube, and both the
specimen and the tube were placed on a wood board on the concrete
floor during blasting. The rock specimen together with the granite block
were enclosed by an open wood box with a size of 1 × 1 × 2 m3. The
front side of the wood box was open and a glass plate was placed in the
front side so that a high speed camera could film blasting process
through the glass. The glass plate could also protect the camera in case
of flying rocks.
The density of the granite was 2660 kg/m3, effective porosity 1.6%,
water absorption 0.3%, P-wave velocity 4746 m/s, and dynamic uni-
axial compressive strength 118 MPa at a strain rate of 68 s−1.
The explosive RDX (research department explosive) with a critical
diameter of 1–1.5 mm (Kubota, 2007; Zhang, 2016) was used in this
study since blastholes were small and only a small amount of explosive
could be loaded to each blasthole. The explosive had a density of
1.09 g/cm3, explosion heat of 5430 kJ/kg, and a velocity of detonation
(VOD) of 8089 m/s.
2.2. Experimental method
As shown in Fig. 1, each rock specimen from groups A—C was
placed in a steel tube, with a 14 mm air gap between the specimen and
the tube. The tube was mainly to stop fly rocks in the horizontal di-
rections during blasting and protect the camera outside the wood box.
In addition, because the gap was left empty, i.e. only air in the gap, the
steel tube worked as a hard barrier, making flying fragments from
blasting collide with the tube and resulting in secondary fragmentation
of the flying fragments. Furthermore, no confining pressure was applied
to each rock specimen due to the air gap.
The powder RDX explosive was wrapped together with an electric
detonator in a thin plastic bag as a package explosive to each blasthole,
with a charge length less than 2 cm. During each blast, the high speed
camera was used to record the process of blasting. To synchronize the
detonation initiation with the high speed camera as precisely as pos-
sible, two enamelled wires were fixed on the detonator and their other
ends connected to the cable from the trigger of the camera (Chi et al.,
2019a,b). When the detonator was fired, the two wires were connected
together as a conductor, and this signal was sent to the cable from the
trigger of the camera. Since the lengths of the wires plus the cable are
3 m in the model blasts and the electromagnetic wave speed in a va-
cuum is about 3 × 108 m/s, the time for the signal propagating from
the detonator to the trigger is approximately 0.01 microsecond. This
time can be certainly neglected. High speed camera Memrecam HX-3
was used in this study. After each blast, photographs were taken using
an ordinary camera, and the fragments of each specimen were col-
lected, weighted, and sieved. After that, the size distribution of each
model blast was analysed.
3. Results and analysis
The experimental results from each group are presented in the fol-
lowing. The results include photographs of fracture and fragmentation
taken by ordinary camera, fragment size distribution, particle sizes at
given percentages of accumulated mass passing, and high-speed pho-
tographs. The fragment size distribution is expressed by the curves of
accumulated mass passing versus particle size. Because most surface
area of all fragments in model blasts was related to the particles smaller
than 1 mm (Moser and Grasedieck, 2004), three percentages—1%, 10%
and 50%—were chosen as the given percentages of mass passing so that

Table 1
Parameters of rock specimens, explosive, stemming and charge conditions.
Specimen Specimen No. Specimenweight (kg) Material Specimen Length of RDX Specific Stemming* Steel pipe Filling in
group loss (kg) diameter in mm/ blasthole (g) charge (kg/ gap
length in mm (mm) excluding m3)
detonator

A S1 35.6 0.88 240/302 217 4.00 0.29 no y no

A S2 36.5 0.98 239/305 215 4.00 0.29 Sand bag (6 cm) y no
B S3 35.6 0.50 238/304 214 3.05 0.22 no y no
B S4 36.6 0.99 237/305 215 3.02 0.22 Rock bag (6 cm) y no
B S13 36.2 0.47 242/303 207 3.01 0.22 no y no
C S16 36.1 0.42 238/302 203 8.02 0.6 no y no
C S17 36.1 0.64 240/303 200 8.00 0.58 PVC + water y no
C S18 37.0 0.40 242/305 204 8.01 0.57 PVC + water y no
D S23 36.1 0.06 238/304 210 3.01 0.22 no no no
D S24 35.1 0.59 240/299 197 3.00 0.22 PVC + water no no

* The full name of PVC is polyvinyl chloride, a plastic. Sand bag contained sand with a size smaller than 1 mm, and rock bag contained fine particles smaller than
1 mm from earlier model blasting. PVC + water means that the PVC tube contained water inside and the PVC tube was placed on the explosive charge.

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Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
Fig. 1. Experimental set up for blasting. Left: cylindrical granite specimen S2, steel tube, cubic granite block and wood box. Right: diagram of cross-section of the
granite specimen and tube.
the size distribution of 1 mm or so particles could be included and
analysed in more details.
3.1. Group A—specimens with a specific charge of 0.29 kg/m3, free surface
and steel tube as a barrier
This group includes two specimens S1 and S2. Both specimens had a
4 g RDX explosive charge, corresponding to a specific charge of
0.29 kg/m3, and they were placed inside a steel tube during blasting, as
shown in Fig. 1. The only difference between S1 and S2 was that S2 had
stemming but S1 did not. Fig. 2a shows that the pictures I—III are for
unstemmed S1 and pictures IV-VI for stemmed S2. Fig. 2a-I and Fig. 2a-
IV show the photographs of these two specimens taken immediately
after blasting; Fig. 2a-II and Fig. 2a-V indicate the pictures of the two
specimens taken after the upper fragments were removed; Fig. 2a-III
and Fig. 2a-VI present all the fragments of the two specimens. Fig. 2a
clearly shows that: (1) the stemmed S2 has 8 radial cracks but un-
stemmed S1 does only 4–6 radial cracks in their upper parts; (2) the
stemmed S2 has more and smaller fragments than the unstemmed
specimen S1. To draw a reliable conclusion, it is necessary to perform a
quantitative investigation on the fragmentation under both stemmed
and unstemmed conditions.
Fig. 2b shows the sieving results for S1 and S2, indicating that the
stemmed S2 has markedly higher accumulated mass passing at all
particle sizes except for one size—the secondary smallest particle size
used in this study.
Fig. 2c presents in detail the numerical results for three given per-
centages of mass passing—1%, 10% and 50%. Evidently, at all three
percentages, the stemmed S2 shows much smaller particle sizes, re-
spectively. Take 1% mass passing as example, the particle size of S2 is
2.3 mm but that of S1 is 6.8 mm, i.e. the 1% mass passing size of the
unstemmed S1 is three times greater than that of the stemmed S2.
3.2. Group B—specimens with a specific charge of 0.22 kg/m3, free surface
and steel tube as a barrier
This group includes three specimens S3, S4 and S13. All the speci-
mens had a 3 g RDX explosive charge corresponding to 0.22 kg/m3
specific charge and they were placed inside a steel tube during blasting,
as shown in Fig. 1. S4 had stemming but S3 and S13 did not. Fig. 3a-I,
Fig. 3a-IV, and Fig. 3a-VII show the photographs of the three specimens
taken immediately after blasting; Fig. 3a-II and Fig. 3a-VIII indicate the
pictures of two specimens S3 and S4 taken after the upper fragments
were removed; Fig. 3a-V is the picture of one fragment of S13; Fig. 3a-
III, Fig. 3a-VI and Fig. 3a-IX present all the fragments of the three
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257
specimens. Fig. 3a clearly demonstrates that the stemmed S4 produces
more and smaller fragments than unstemmed S3 and S13. For example,
the upper parts of S3 and S13 were broken into 3–5 big fragments, but
the upper part of the stemmed S4 was broken into more than 5 frag-
ments and they were thrown out of the tube. Similarly, the lower parts
of S3 and S13 were fractured into a few big parts, but the lower part of
S4 was broken into many small fragments. As a qualitative result,
stemmed S4 produces finer fragmentation than unstemmed S3 and S13.
This result is consistent with that from Group A. Similar to Group A, it is
necessary to perform a quantitative investigation on the fragmentation
under both stemmed and unstemmed conditions.
Fig. 3b shows the sieving results of S3, S4 and S13, indicating that
the stemmed S4 has much higher accumulated mass passing at all
particle sizes than unstemmed S3 and S13. Fig. 3c presents in detail the
results for three given percentages of mass passing—1%, 10% and 50%.
Obviously, at all three percentages, the stemmed S4 gives much smaller
particle sizes, respectively. Take 1% mass passing as example, the
particle size of stemmed S4 is 5.3 mm but that of unstemmed S3 is
89.1 mm and that of S13 is 74.5 mm, i.e. the 1% mass passing size of the
two unstemmed specimens S3 and S13 is over 14 times greater than
that of the stemmed S4.
3.3. Group C—specimens with a specific charge of 0.6 kg/m3, free surface
and steel tube as a barrier
Group C includes three specimens S16, S17 and S18. All three had
an 8 g RDX explosive charge corresponding to 0.6 kg/m3 specific charge
and they were placed inside a steel tube during blasting, as shown in
Fig. 1. S17 and S18 had stemming but S16 did not. Fig. 4a shows all
fragments collected from each specimen after sieving. It looks that the
unstemmed S16 has larger fragments than stemmed S17 and S18.
However, to obtain a reliable conclusion, it is necessary to perform a
quantitative study on the fragmentation under both stemmed and un-
stemmed conditions.
Fig. 4b shows the sieving results of S16, S17 and S18, indicating that
the stemmed S17 and S18 have markedly higher mass passing than
unstemmed S16 at most particle sizes. Fig. 4c presents the results for
three given percentages of mass passing—1%, 10% and 50%. Ob-
viously, at all three percentages, the stemmed S17 and S18 have much
smaller particle sizes than the unstemmed S16, respectively. Take 1%
mass passing as example, the particle sizes of stemmed S17 and S18 are
0.19 mm and 0.24 mm, respectively, but the particle size of unstemmed
S16 is 0.6 mm. In other words, the 1% passing size of the unstemmed
S16 is about 3 times greater than that of the stemmed S17 and S18.
Z.-X. Zhang, et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257

Fig. 2. Fragmentation and size distribution of S1 and S2. (a) Photos of fragmentation; (b) accumulated mass passing vs. particle size; (c) particle sizes at three given
mass passing percentages.

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Z.-X. Zhang, et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257

Fig. 3. Fragmentation and size distribution of S3, S4 and S13. (a) Photos of fragmentation; (b) accumulated mass passing vs. particle size; (c) particle sizes at three
given mass passing percentages.

3.4. Group D—specimens with a specific charge of 0.22 kg/m3 and free placed on the granite block but no steel tube was used during blasting,
surface as shown in Fig. 5a. The two specimens had a 3 g RDX explosive charge
corresponding to 0.22 kg/m3 specific charge. S24 had stemming but
This group has two specimens S23 and S24. Both specimens were S23 did not. Fig. 5a shows that the unstemmed S23 is broken into two

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Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
Fig. 4. Fragmentation and size distribution of S16, S17 and S18. (a) Photos of fragmentation; (b) accumulated mass passing vs. particle size; (c) particle sizes at three
given mass passing percentages.
halves along the axis of the specimen, with a small amount of frag-
ments. However, the upper part of stemmed S24 are broken into 5 big
pies, while its lower part is destructed into many pieces. Evidently,
stemmed S24 has much finer fragmentation than unstemmed S23. Si-
milar to other groups, a quantitative investigation on the fragmentation
under both stemmed and unstemmed conditions was done.
Fig. 5b shows the sieving results of S23 and S24, indicating that the
stemmed S24 has markedly higher percentage of mass passing than
unstemmed S23. Fig. 5c presents detailed results for two percentages of
mass passing—0.1% and 100%. Since S23 has few fragments and it does
not have fragments in 11% and 10% passing, we only choose two
percentages 0.1% and 100%. At these two percentages, the stemmed
S24 has much smaller particle sizes than unstemmed S23, e.g., at 0.1%
mass passing, the particle size of stemmed S24 is 1.08 mm but that of
unstemmed S23 is 11.54 mm i.e. the 0.1% passing size of the un-
stemmed S23 is over 10 times greater than that of the stemmed S24.
3.5. Effect of both stemming and specific charge on fragmentation
Fragmentation results of 8 specimens with free surface and steel
tube are summarized in Fig. 6. It can be concluded: (1) At the same
specific charge, stemmed specimens always give higher percentage of
mass passing or much better fragmentation than unstemmed specimens.
(2) Specific charge largely influences fragmentation. Among all speci-
mens with three different specific charges, greater specific charge re-
sults in higher percentage of mass passing or better fragmentation,
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257
under either stemmed or unstemmed condition. For example, the curves
of stemmed S17 (specific charge 0.6 kg/m3) and S18 (0.6 kg/m3) are in
the highest positions, the curves of stemmed S2 (0.29 kg/m3) is in the
lower position, and the curve of stemmed S4 (0.22 kg/m3) in the lowest
position. The similar result can be found for unstemmed S16 (0.6 kg/
m3), S1 (0.29 kg/m3), S3 (0.22 kg/m3) and S13 (0.22 kg/m3). (3)
Stemming is significantly important for explosive utilization and frag-
mentation, according to the comparison of two curves for S1 and S4. It
is clearly shown that the curve of stemmed S4 with a specific charge of
0.22 kg/m3 is partly overlapped, mostly higher, and little (2 points)
lower than the curve of unstemmed S1 with a specific charge of
0.29 kg/m3. In brief, the fragmentation of stemmed S4 with a specific
charge of 0.22 kg/m3 is somewhat better than that of unstemmed S1
with a specific charge of 0.29 kg/m3. However, S1 has more than 1 g
explosive than S4. In other words, at least 1 g explosive in S1 was
wasted due to unstemming, i.e. more than 25% explosive energy was
wasted because of no stemming.
3.6. Gas ejection
The selected photographs from high speed camera are shown in
Fig. 7. In this figure the detonation began at 0 ms. In each picture,
except for that at 0 ms, there is a dashed square equal to the projected
area of the steel tube in the corresponding picture. In these pictures the
projected areas of the ejected gases are all greater in unstemmed S3
than in stemmed S4 at times 0.4 ms, 0.8 ms, and 1.2 ms, respectively.
Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
Fig. 5. Fragmentation and size distribution of S23 and S24. (a) Photos of fragmentation; (b) accumulated mass passing vs. particle size; (c) particle sizes at two given
mass passing percentages. The PVC pipe in S24 was placed on the explosive charge.
Assume that the projected area of ejected gases in each picture is di-
rectly proportional to the explosive energy contained in the ejected
gases, the energy in the ejected gases should be more in S3 than that in
S4. In addition, although initiation of detonation releases light in both
blasts S3 and S4, the released light at and after 0.4 ms looks much
stronger in S3 than in S4. Combining these two points together, it can
be inferred that the explosion energy used in rock fragmentation should
be less in unstemmed S3 than in stemmed S4. As a consequence, the
fragmentation of S3 is poor than that of S4. It is to point out that,
however, this method using ejection area to judge gas energy is very
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257
rough. Therefore, in the future, it is better to measure the gas ejection
from the collar of a blasthole.
Concerning the lighting at the moment of detonation in S4, it is to
note that the stemming material in this specimen was rock powders
from previous model blasting. The powders were placed in a thin plastic
bag with a length of 60 mm and a diameter close to and smaller than
20 mm—the diameter of the borehole. In other words, there existed a
small gap between the stemming bag and the wall of the hole.
Accordingly, this small gap could make the lighting in the first picture
of S4 visible when the detonation was initiated.
Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
Fig. 6. Accumulated mass passing vs. particle sizes.
4. Discussion
(1) Stemming material and length
In this study two simple stemming methods were used. One method
used a 6-cm long sand (or rock powder) bag in S2 and S4, and the other
employed a PVC tube with water in S17, S18 and S24. Using PVC tube
and water was useful for fragment collection since the PVC tube was
Fig. 7. Selected pictures from high speed photographs for unstemmed S3 and stemmed S4.
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257
very easy to find after blasting. However, it is not possible to collect the
water after blasting. This is drawback as water is used in such tests. In
this study, the water is not considered in the weight of collected frag-
ments. When sand bag was used, we had to take away one part of fine
fragments/particles whose weight was equal to the sand or rock powder
in the stemming bag. In these small model blasts we did not intend to
study how stemming material and stemming length influence blasting
result since the blastholes were small and the weight of explosive in
each hole was limited. This issue has been discussed using shock wave
theory, but a further study is necessary (Zhang. 2016).
It is to point out that the two stemming methods in this study were
not full stemming, e.g. in S2 and S4 only 6-cm long stemming was used
in 20-cm long holes, and in S17, S18 and S24 the PVC tubes were in 16-
mm diameter smaller than 20-mm—the diameter of blast holes. Even
though the stemming was not full in the two methods, the difference in
fragmentation results from stemmed and unstemmed blasts was great,
meaning that full and sufficient stemming may produce even better
fragmentation than that reported in this study. How to determine such a
sufficient stemming in practical blasting needs more studies in the fu-
ture.
(2) Material loss
It is very difficult to avoid material (fragments, in particular fines)
loss in model blasting or other dynamic impact tests. For example, in
mechanical impact tests (Sadrai et al., 2011), the material loss was 3%
on average, even though the collection of materials was carefully done.
In this study, as indicated in Table 1, the lost materials vary from 62 g
to 988 g from each specimen, corresponding to 0.2% and 2.7% of the
original weight of each specimen, although the materials of each spe-
cimen were carefully collected in only one square meter of area en-
closed by a wooden box. As reported by Sadrai et al. (2006), almost half
of the new surface area was produced on the finest particles, which
makes up only 0.2% by weight of the total sample. This indicates that
the fine particles are extremely important for evaluating fragmentation
Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
Fig. 8. Bottom-up photo (a) and remained bottom (b) of S18.
results. In other words, material loss must be reduced to as a small
amount as possible in model blasts. However, it is a great challenge to
do so. In this study, we often observed that there were very fine ma-
terials in form of dust on the steel tube and on the granite block. How to
collect such materials is an issue in future study. In addition, how to
choose a stemming material is another issue since the stemming ma-
terial must be subtracted from the fragments including fines for sieving
after blasting.
(3) Measurement and sieving of fragments
It can be found that there is a jump of accumulated mass passing as
the particle size is equal to 12.5 mm in Figs. 2–6. The reason is that in
this study the percentage at 12.5 mm size was based on all accumulated
fragments whose sizes were between 12.5 and 50–60 mm. The frag-
ments > 50 mm were weighted and measured individually and
manually, and the fragments < 20 mm were measured by using sieves.
Evidently, in the future study, such a jump can be avoided by manually
measuring the fragments/particles between 12.5 mm and 50 mm.
(4) Specific charge
There are two points to be paid attention, regarding specific charge
in rock blasting. The first is that unstemming or insufficient stemming
can markedly decrease the useful explosion energy applied to the rock.
This has been clearly demonstrated in Fig. 6. In other words, if stem-
ming is not used in a blast, much explosive will be wasted in the form of
ejected gases from borehole collars, even though the specific charge is
high. The second point is that misfires in multi-hole blast must be
considered in the design of a blast. This is because in multihole blasting
such as underground mining blasting, misfires are very common (Zhang
2005, 2016). For instance, in sublevel caving production blasting, the
misfires were from 10 to 18% (Zhang 2016); in drifting, the misfires
were about 23% (Nyberg and Fjellborg, 2000); in open stopping op-
erations, the misfires were up to 30% (Dawes et al., 1983). In brief, a
higher specific charge does not necessarily result in better fragmenta-
tion if stemming is lacking or insufficient and if misfires occur.
(5) Source of fines
In many cases, very fine materials—usually called fines—from blasting
are negative for working environment, energy efficiency in blasting, and
minerals recovery since fines are difficult to be recovered in mineral
processing and easy to be lost in the form of dust in the process of loading,
transportation, etc. Thus, to control or reduce such fines in blasting, it is
necessary to find their sources. It is usually thought that the fines could
come from the region close to the borehole walls where shock waves are
acting on the rock. Another probable source could be crack branching
under blast loads. The reason is that a propagating crack in rock may cause
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 97 (2020) 103257
branching cracks (Bieniawski, 1968), and such branching cracks increase
with increasing loading rates under dynamic loading conditions (Zhang
et al., 1999; Zhang et al., 2000; 2001). Since those branching cracks in-
clude not only macro-scale cracks but also micro-scales ones originating at
main cracks (Zhang et al., 2000), the micro branching cracks close to the
main cracks could finally result in fines. Accordingly, we can infer that the
more the macro-cracks (corresponding to more fragments) are produced in
one blast, the more are the fines created. To support this argument, let us
see Fig. 5a showing that S23 is just broken into two halves. In Table 1 it
can be found that the material loss of S23 is only 60 g, probably due to
only one macro-crack. Different from S23, specimen S18 shown in Fig. 8
has a great number of macro-cracks and fragments. Fig. 8a is a bottom-up
photo of S18 taken after blasting was over, and Fig. 8b is the remained S18
on the floor when the steel tube was removed. Fig. 8b indicates that a lot
of fines are situated on the fragments and close to the boundary of the
remained S18. Therefore, it is very possible that part of the fines are due to
the branching cracks discussed above. Note that the remained part of S18
in Fig. 8b was originally in the central part of the conic volume in Fig. 8a.
(6) Limitation of this study
It was tried to measure the strains on the steel tube and on the free
surface of each specimen during blasting. Unfortunately, there was no
strain signals picked up from the gauges on the steel tube, probably be-
cause the actual strains were too small to be recorded due to the air gap
between the tube and the specimen. In addition, the measurement of the
strains on the rock specimens was not successful due to too much local
noises and limited signal amplifications in the strain measuring system.
Furthermore, the measurement of the air shock pressure close to the
borehole collars was tried in two specimens. The measurement in one
specimen was successful, while that in other one not, indicating that it is
possible to get successful results in such a measurement. Therefore, in the
future, it is necessary to carry out the above measurements further.
Only one explosive RDX and one type of rock with small cylinders
and without joints were used in this study due to the cost limitation of
this study. In the future, if possible, larger sizes of samples from dif-
ferent types of rock containing joints and other types of explosives can
be used to perform similar experiments since the sizes of rock samples,
rock type including joints/structures, and explosive type may influence
the results of fragmentation more or less.
This study focuses on experimental study through model blasting.
Therefore, numerical simulation to rock fragmentation is out of this
study due to both limited financial support and difficulties in numerical
simulation of rock fragmentation by blasting. It is expected that this
kind of numerical simulation can be done successfully in the future by
using a reliable numerical code suitable for modelling rock fragmen-
tation by blasting. If so, the stemming effect on rock fragmentation by
blasting can be further studied by combining relevant laboratory
blasting experiments with numerical simulation in the future.
Z.-X. Zhang, et al.
5. Conclusions
Based on the laboratory-scale model blasts with high explosive RDX
in this study, the following conclusions can be drawn:
All groups of model blasts show that stemmed blasts yield much
better fragmentation than unstemmed blasts. In other words, stemmed
blasts produce higher mass passing percentile than unstemmed ones at
a given particle size. Therefore, stemming must be used in the blasts
aiming at good rock fragmentation.
A stemmed blast with 3 g explosive corresponding to 0.22 kg/m3
specific charge yields a little bit better fragmentation result than a
unstemmed blast with 4 g explosive corresponding to 0.29 kg/m3
specific charge, meaning that at least 25% explosive energy in the un-
stemmed blast is wasted in the form of ejected gases.
Higher specific charge yields better fragmentation under both
stemmed and unstemmed conditions.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by K. H. Renlund Foundation in
Finland. Anhui Laoshiren Stone Co. Ltd, China provided free of charge
rock specimens for this study. China Scholarship Council (CSC) gave
support to the second author. The authors are grateful to Han Tifei, Wu
Hongbo, Jiang Xiangyang, Wang Yang, Wu Weimin, Zhang Hong, Chen
Ao, Yu Qian, and Meng Xiangwu for their help in blasting tests.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest associated
with this publication.
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