Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164

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Computers and Geotechnics

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

DEM–SPH simulation of rock blasting

Ali Fakhimi a,b,⇑, Mark Lanari a
a
Department of Mineral Engineering, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM 87801, USA
b
School of Civil and Environmental 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

Article history: A numerical model is proposed for the simulation of rock blasting. A bonded particle system is utilized to
Received 19 March 2013 mimic the behavior of rock. The particles interact at the contact points through normal and shear springs
Received in revised form 17 July 2013 to simulate rock elasticity. To withstand the deviatoric stresses, the particles are glued to each other. If
Accepted 27 August 2013
the applied force exceeds the contact strength, local failure occurs and microcracks are developed in
Available online 23 September 2013
the synthetic rock. For simulation of gas flow, the smooth particle hydrodynamic method is implemented.
The interaction of gas particles with the rock grains is assumed to follow a perfect plastic collision model
Keywords:
in which the initial momentum of the colliding particles is preserved. A detailed examination of the inter-
Rock blasting
Discrete element
action of gas with blast hole is investigated. It is shown that the proposed hybrid model is capable of sim-
Smooth particle hydrodynamics ulating the induced shock waves in the gas together with wave propagation in the rock material. The
Rock fracture model successfully mimics crack propagation in rock. In particular, the crushed zone around the bore-
hole, radial cracks, and surface spalling are all captured successfully. The results of numerical analysis
suggest that gas–rock interaction can, in fact, generate a few successive compressive waves in the rock
specimen, causing further extension of radial cracks with time as the weaker secondary and tertiary
waves interact with the crack tips.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction to model rock fragmentation and heave in the blasting process.

Rock blasting is an important tool for removal of rock in mining
and civil engineering industries. In particular, for tunnel excavation
in hard material, rock blasting is very popular as an alternative to
tunnel boring machines. During detonation of explosive material,
high pressure gas is generated in a very short period of time that
can exert pressures on the order of a few GPa to the rock wall.
The generated pressure is much greater than the tensile and com-
pressive strengths of rock, causing fracture propagation in rock.
While through this process rock breaks into small particles that
can be easily removed by machines, improper design of blasting
layout can cause undesired damage to the surrounding rock which
can endanger the stability of the excavation. Therefore, for more
efficient and effective rock blasting, this phenomenon must be
studied in detail. To this end, some efforts have been reported in
the literature. Potyondy et al. [1] used PFC3D, a 3-dimensional dis-
crete-element program, to simulate rock fragmentation. The explo-
sion was modeled as a time-varying pressure applied at the edge of
a cylindrical region 3 times the diameter of the original borehole,
to account for the region of crushed rock which would develop
near the center of the detonation. Minchinton and Lynch [2] used
the combined finite element–discrete element program MBM2D
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Mineral Engineering, New Mexico
Tech, Socorro, NM 87801, USA.
E-mail address: hamed@nmt.edu (A. Fakhimi).
Both stemmed and unstemmed bench blasts were simulated, and
the authors were able to study the effect of the free slope face on
the fragmentation and heaving. Wang et al. [3] developed a
cross-format centered finite-difference procedure to study a
problem involving spalling in a rock plate from an explosive and
compared their results to an LS-DYNA simulation. The AUTODYN
2D computer program was utilized by Zhu et al. [4] to model rock
fracturing of a cylindrical specimen with the blast hole at its
center. The authors investigated the effects of different coupling
materials placed between the explosive charge and the rock. Ma
and An [5] implemented the Johnson–Holmquist model in
LS-DYNA computer program to simulate fracture control tech-
niques in rock. In an attempt to provide some practical tools for
rock engineers, Wei et al. [6] used ANSYS-LSDYNA to evaluate
the effect of loading density, rock mass rating, and weight of charge
on rock mass damage induced by underground explosions. Re-
cently, Onederra et al. [7] used a fully coupled gas flow-lattice
model to study blast induced damage in rock. While their approach
seems to be promising in capturing many features of dynamic rock
fracture, due to the confidentiality of their study, they were not
able to provide details of their research work.
Smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) was originally developed
in the field of astrophysics [8], but the simplicity and Lagrangian
nature of the method encouraged the scientists and engineers to
quickly apply and diversify its applications to fluid and solid

0266-352X/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2013.08.008
 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164
mechanics problems [9]. In many applications, it is convenient to
combine SPH with another method, such as finite element (FEM)
or discrete element method (DEM). Combining SPH with FEM can
be accomplished by placing the smoothed particles closest to the
finite element mesh on a grid and using grid stiffness to transfer
forces between the particles and mesh [10]. A method that is better
suited to situations in which the smoothed particles are simulating
a fluid is by applying a ‘‘penalty force’’ when smoothed particles
impact the finite element grid [11].
In this paper, a hybrid SPH-DEM method is proposed for cou-
pled simulation of gas–rock interaction. Rock is modeled with a
bonded particle system. A bonded particle system is made of dis-
crete circular disks that interact with each other at the contact
points. SPH is used to simulate the gas flow. The interaction of
the gas particles and rock grains (discrete elements) is achieved
by considering an ideal plastic impact of the colliding particles
such that the initial momentum is preserved. The SPH model for
gas flow and its interaction with discrete elements are imple-
mented in the computer program CA2 [12]. Some numerical exam-
ples are presented which suggest the capability of the proposed
model to analyze the problem of rock blasting. In particular, it is
shown that with this model, the gas pressure on the rock wall
may not result in a monotonic function of time. A monotonic gas
pressure as a function of time is normally used as an approxima-
tion for the applied gas pressure in the simplified numerical simu-
lation of rock blasting. Furthermore, with the simplified models,
gas penetration inside the induced cracks is not usually modeled.
2. SPH formulation of gas flow
During detonation of an explosive material, the solid or liquid
explosive becomes a high pressure, high temperature gas in a very
short period of time. The gas pressure can easily reach 10 GPa,
which can cause instant damage to the surrounding rock. In this
paper, a smooth particle hydrodynamic model is used to simulate
the gas flow. Since the interaction of gas and surrounding rock lasts
for a short period of time (a few milliseconds), the gas flow is con-
sidered to be adiabatic. In addition, the hot gas is assumed to have
a low viscosity, and thus the gas flow is considered inviscid. The
governing equations consist of conservation of mass, momentum,
and energy. When expressed in a Lagrangian framework, which
is more appropriate for SPH formulations, these equations are
Dq
þ qma;a ¼ 0
Dt
Dv a
q ¼ P;a þ qfa
Dt
De
q ¼ Pv a;a
Dt
Note that repeated Greek letters in a term imply summation. In
the Euler equations 1a, 1b, and 1c, q is density, P is pressure, e is
internal energy per unit mass, t is time, va is the gas velocity com-
ponent in xa direction, and fa is the body force per unit mass of the
gas. A calorically perfect gas is assumed, whose equation of state is
P ¼ ðc  1Þqe
where c is the ratio of the specific heat of the gas at constant pressure
to that at constant volume. The SPH or kernel approximation for the
partial derivative of a function g(x1, x2, x3) at point i is defined as
Z Z
hg ;a ii ¼ g ;a dðx  xi ÞdV ffi g ;a Wðx  xi ÞdV
Z sive to uniaxial tensile strength of the synthetic material [12]. The
¼ gWðx  xi Þ;a dV
159
In Eq. (3), d(x  xi) is the delta function and W is the weighting
or smoothing function. In order to derive Eq. (3), the smoothing
function at point (i) has been assumed to have a circular compact
support with radius 2hi; hi is called the smoothing length at point i.
By applying Eq. (3), the kernel approximations of Eqs. (1) for
smooth particle i are obtained, which can then be written in parti-
cle approximation format within the supporting domain [9]:
X
N
qi ¼ mj W ij ð4aÞ
j¼1
 !
Dv a  XN
Pi Pj
i ¼  mj 2 þ 2 þ pij W ij;a ð4bÞ
Dt  j¼1
qi qj
!

Dea  1X N
Pi Pj
i¼ mj 2 þ 2 þ pij ðv aji  v ajj ÞW ij;a ð4cÞ
Dt  2 j¼1 qi qj
In Eqs. (4), mj is the mass of smooth particle j and pij is the
Monaghan type artificial viscosity [9,13]. The so-called summation
density (Eq. (4a)) is a popular SPH equation to enforce the balance
of mass. In particular, it accurately models the shortage of smooth
particles when a free surface boundary condition is involved. On
the other hand, in a solid wall boundary situation, the wall bound-
ary occupies part of the smoothing domain and Eq. (4a) needs
some corrections. To this end, when part of the smoothing domain
of a smooth particle is occupied by disks or rock grains, the nor-
malized form of Eq. (4a) is used:
PN
mj W ij
qi ¼ Pj¼1
N mj
ð5Þ
j¼1 qj W ij
Several different smoothing functions (Wij) have been reported
and used in the literature. The cubic spline function is utilized in
this paper. The cubic spline function is a bell-shaped function that
resembles the delta function as the smoothing length approaches
zero. This function has been the most popular smoothing function
in the literature [9].
Eqs. (4b) and (4c) are coupled ordinary differential equations
that are solved using an explicit finite difference method. The same
numerical technique is used for solving the governing equations
for discrete elements [14].
ð1aÞ 3. Discrete element model (DEM) for rock deformation
The rock is modeled using a discrete element or bonded particle
ð1bÞ system [15]. Rock grains are represented by circular cylinders that
interact through normal and shear springs (kn and ks) to simulate
rock elastic behavior. To withstand the applied deviatoric stresses,
ð1cÞ the disks are glued at the contact points. The normal and shear
strengths of a contact point are shown with nb and sb in this paper.
If the applied tensile or shear force exceeds the contact strength,
contact failure occurs and both normal and shear bonds are set
to zero. A failed contact can no longer carry tensile force but it
can resist shear forces if the contact normal force is compressive.
In this latter situation, the maximum tolerable shear force is ob-
ð2Þ tained using a Coulomb failure criterion with a friction coefficient
of l. In addition to the micromechanical parameters kn, ks, nb, sb,
and l, the radius of the disks (R) and genesis pressure (r0) must
be specified. The genesis pressure is the uniform pressure that is
applied to the particles during sample preparation to create a small
overlap of the disks at contact points. The small overlap can help to
provide more realistic friction angle and ratio of uniaxial compres-
ð3Þ bonded particle system with the above micromechanical
parameters is able to provide elasticity, pressure sensitivity, crack
160 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164
propagation, and dilatational behavior similar to those observed in
geomaterials without the need to resort to complicated constitu-
tive models that normally have many material constants.
An important step in a bonded particle simulation of rock is the
calibration procedure by which the micromechanical constants
have to be obtained based on the macro-properties of rock. This
procedure can be conducted using the dimensionless graphs
reported in [16]. The mechanical properties that are used for cali-
bration in this paper are elastic modulus, Poisson’s ratio, uniaxial
compressive strength and tensile strength of rock.
4. Interaction between disks and smooth particles
When the solid explosive turns into gas in rock blasting, it ex-
pands rapidly and penetrates into the surrounding rock mass. In
the simulation, the gas particles should be able to flow through
the microcracks and contact points between the disks, but they
must not penetrate into disks or rock grains. To this end and for
simplicity, the interaction between a smooth particle and a disk
is assumed to follow a perfectly plastic collision model. In this
model, if a smooth particle collides with a disk, in a single numer-
ical time step the particles are brought to rest with respect to each
other along the line that connects the center of the particles such
that the initial momentum is conserved. It can be easily shown that
the reaction force fn in such a collision is equal to
Dv n
fn ¼  
1
Dt mD
þ m1SP
in which Dvn is the relative velocity along the contact line connect-
ing the smooth particle to the disk center, Dt is the numerical time
step, and mD and mSP are the masses of disk and smooth particle,
respectively. The contact force fn is decomposed into its compo-
nents along the coordinate axes and is used in the momentum
equations of disk and smooth particle (Eq. (1b)).
Note that in the plastic collision of two particles, some energy is
lost that can simulate the damping effect. For two circular particles
with initial velocities vD and vSP along the line connecting their
centroids, the energy loss (EL) is:
1 1 1 stants were obtained: kn = 42.4 GPa, ks = 17.8 GPa, nb = 48 kN/m,
EL ¼ mD v 2D þ msp v 2sp  ðmD þ msp Þv 2com
2 2 2
In Eq. (7), vcom is the combined velocity of the two particles after
the impact.
5. Verification examples
The CA2 computer program is used for the numerical simula-
tions. CA2 is a hybrid discrete-finite element program to simulate
static and dynamic problems in geomechanics [12]. The program
was modified by adding the features of smooth particle hydrody-
namics to the code. The interaction of smooth particles and disks
is modeled using a perfect plastic collision concept discussed in
the previous section. The accuracy of CA2 in solving discrete ele-
ment problems has been verified and reported elsewhere [12,16],
but some benchmark problems need to be solved to verify the
robustness of the program when smooth particles are involved.
5.1. Solution of shock tube problem
An important problem in unsteady gas flow is the one-dimen-
sional shock tube problem. The tube is closed at both ends and
in the middle a diaphragm is mounted that separates high and
low pressure gas. 534 and 133 smooth particles are used on the left
and right sides of the membrane, respectively. The distance be-
tween smooth particles on the left is 1.875 mm and on the right
is 7.5 mm. The length of the shock tube is 2 meters, with the mem-
brane situated in the middle. The density and energy of smooth
particles on the right and left sides of the membrane are 1.0 kg/
m3 and 5.0 J/kg, and 0.25 kg/m3 and 3.6 J/kg, respectively. The time
step was 0.0001 s and c in Eq. (2) is 1.4. The one-dimensional
closed form solution of this problem exists in the literature [17]
and is used to illustrate the accuracy of the numerical model
(Fig. 1a and b). Figs. 1a and b show how the gas pressure and
density change along the shock tube at time 0.2 s; good agreement
between the CA2 program results and the closed form solution is
observed.
5.2. Cylindrical gas expansion
In the second example, the problem of gas cylindrical expansion
is studied. A long cylindrical tube of TNT with radius of 0.1 m is as-
sumed to explode suddenly. The radial distance of smooth particles
is 0.005 m while they are 6 degrees apart in the tangential direc-
tion. In total, 1200 smooth particles are used for this simulation
(Fig. 2a). The initial density of explosive material is 1630 kg/m3,
its intial energy is 4.29 MJ/kg, and c = 1.4. The numerical time step
was 5  108 s. The velocity vectors of smooth particles at 0.08
milliseconds are shown in Fig. 2b, which show radial gas expansion
at a maximum velocity of 3.53 km/s. The CA2 distributions of gas
pressure and density along a radial cut are compared with those
from the computer program MSC/Dytran reported in [9] (Fig. 3).
ð6Þ MSC/Dytran is a grid based computer program. Notice that the free
boundary condition at the gas expanding front has been correctly
simulated using Eq. (4a) for density calculation.
6. Numerical modeling of rock blasting
A synthetic rock material was obtained by calibration of the
discrete element model for Pennsylvania Blue sandstone. The lab-
oratory tests on this rock suggest an elastic modulus (E) of 27 GPa,
a Poisson’s ratio (t) of 0.15, a uniaxial compressive strength (qu) of
122 MPa, and a tensile strength (rt) of 9.9 MPa. Upon calibration of
the discrete element model, the following micromechanical con-
ð7Þ sb = 230 kN/m, l = 0.5, and R = 1.6–2.4 mm. These micromechani-
cal parameters were used in numerical uniaxial simulation of a
sample 1  2 m in dimension. The synthetic material shows the
following material properties: E = 26.5 GPa, t = 0.15, qu = 122 MPa,
and rt = 9.6 MPa. These values are in close agreement with those
for the sandstone.
A circular specimen whose radius is 0.5 m was chosen for
numerical simulation using the above micromechanical properties
for the synthetic material. The synthetic rock has a density of
2600 kg/m3. A small hole with a radius of 20 mm was excavated
at the center of the sample. The explosive material was modeled
by 4800 smooth particles and was placed at the center of the hole.
The radius of the explosive material was 5 mm; a gap of 15 mm
was allowed between the solid explosive and the hole boundary
to simulate decoupling (Fig. 4a). The explosive material was as-
sumed to be TNT with initial density of q = 1630 kg/m3, detonation
energy of e = 4.29  106 J/kg, and ratio of specific heat at constant
pressure to specific heat at constant volume of c = 1.4 [9,17].
Fig. 4b depicts the interaction between gas particles and rock
grains at 5.5 ls, when the first impacts took place. Notice that since
the smooth particles are not supposed to penetrate into the rock
grains, they change their path of motion in a direction tangential
to the rock grains to be able to infiltrate into the rock through
the contact points and the induced microcracks between the
grains. After 15 ls, the reaction forces due to rock grains cause
the expansion wave in the gas to bounce back toward the center
 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164 161

2.5 1.2
Theoretical solution Theoretical solution
SPH solution 1. SPH solution
2

Density kg m 3
0.8

Pressure Pa
1.5
0.6
1.
0.4
0.5
0.2

0 0
0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Position m Position m

Fig. 1. Comparison of numerical and closed form solutions of the shock tube problem at 0.2 s. (a) Pressure distribution along the shock tube. (b) Density distribution along the
shock tube.

Fig. 2. Cylinderical gas expansion. (a) The initial arrangement of smooth particles. (b) The smooth particles and velocity vectors at 0.08 ms. The maximum radial velocity in
the figure is 3.53 km/s.

of the borehole. This is indicated by the velocity vectors of gas par-

1. ticles in Fig. 4c. At this time, the gas shock wave has induced some
Dytran solution
SPH solution microcracks between rock grains as shown in Fig. 4c; the tensile
0.8 and shear cracks are shown in red and blue, respectively.
Fig. 5a shows the induced cracks in the sample at 146 ls. The
Pressure GPa

0.6 damaged zone, as expected is made of a central crushed zone, some

radial cracks, and surface spalling. Note that both shear and tensile
0.4 cracks have been generated in the crushed zone as the radial stress
in this region is high and is compressive. Far from the crushed
0.2 zone, the induced cracks are all tensile. An important consequence
of the traveling wave in the circular specimen is the generation of
0 tensile cracks close to the specimen free boundary. The surface
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
spalling is the result of the induced tensile stresses after the com-
Position m
pressive wave is reflected at the free boundary. In Fig. 5b, the
cracks at 1410 ls are shown. Note that at this time, the reflected
800
Dytran solution wave from the free surface has caused further expansion of the ra-
SPH solution dial cracks; the radial cracks in general have a slower propagation
600 velocity compared to the velocity of the compressive wave. In
Density kg m 3

Fig. 6a, the openings of the cracks at 1410 ls are shown. A close-
up view of the opened contacts together with the smooth particles
400 is shown in Fig. 6b. The figure suggests that the smooth particles
have spread deeper into the opened damaged zones as expected.
The results of the computer program at 1410 ls suggest a density
200
range of 8.03–32.4 kg/m3 for the smooth particles indicating that
no unacceptable negative density due to tensile instability has
0 been generated.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
To examine the effect of discontinuities on the outcome of rock
Position m
blasting, the same specimen was studied with the exception that it
Fig. 3. CA2 and MSC/Dytran solutions of cylindrical gas expansion at 0.08 ms. (a) has a horizontal joint 0.1 m from the center of the blast hole
Pressure distribution along a radial cut. (b) Density distribution along a radial cut. (Fig. 7a). The contacts between rock grains along the joint are
162 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164

Fig. 4. (a) The circular numerical specimen with the explosive material placed at its center. (b,c) Close-up views of smooth particles and their velocity vectors and their
interaction with the hole boundary at 5.5 and 15 ls.

Fig. 5. Induced microcracks at (a) 146 ls. (b) 1410 ls.

Fig. 6. (a) Opened up contacts in the rock specimen, (b) A close-up view of the damaged contacts together with the smooth particles. The elapsed time since the start of
blasting is 1410 ls.

assumed to have kn = 0.424 GPa, ks = 0.178 GPa, nb = 0.48 kN/m,
sb = 2.30 kN/m. These are equal to 1% of the corresponding param-
eters for the intact rock. Fig. 7b illustrates the developed cracks in
the specimen at 912 ls. Contrary to the previous example, due to
the presence of the weak joint in the specimen, the transmitted
wave has not been strong enough to create surface spalling in
the top rock block. Nevertheless, some radial cracks have been in-
duced in the rock block. On the other hand, the reflected wave at
the joint surface has caused extensive damaging to the specimen
at points below the joint surface and above the blast hole. As a con-
sequence, a crater has been formed above the blast hole. The radial
cracks at the boundary of the crater have gradually curved down,
resembling two wing cracks that eventually coalesce with the joint
plane surface (Fig. 7c).
7. Discussion of the results
There have been some attempts in the literature to study the ef-
fect of blasting on rock. In many of these studies, the gas–rock
interaction is not fully modeled. Instead, an assumed gas pressure
time history is assumed and applied to the borehole wall [1,5].
Recently, more sophisticated techniques have been proposed but
in some, the confidentiality of the subject has prevented the
authors to elaborate on the method they used [7]. In particular,
the behavior of the explosive gas in the borehole has not been fully
investigated. To elucidate this issue, a more detailed examination
of the first blasting exercise is discussed in this section. The time
history of gas pressure at the center of the borehole is shown in
Fig. 8. The high gas pressure of 3 GPa diminishes quickly due to
 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164 163

Fig. 7. (a) Circular specimen with a joint plane. (b) Induced cracks, (c) Opened up contacts at 912 ls.

surrounding rock. This phenomenon is confirmed by inspecting

the rock particle velocity vectors at 68.2 ls (Fig. 9c). Based on
the borehole gas pressure history (Fig. 8), there have already been
three induced shock waves on the borehole wall. Consequently,
three wave fronts are observed in Fig. 9c traveling toward the free
surface of the specimen. As discussed before, the radial cracks are
created due to the traveling compressive wave in the specimen.
The speed of radial crack tips is less than the speed of the compres-
sive wave. Therefore, it appears that further extension of radial
cracks is due to at least four contributing factors. These are the
Fig. 8. The gas pressure at the center of blast hole vs. time. stored energy at the crack tips due to the passage of the compres-
sive wave, the reflection of the compressive wave on the free
surface or joint surfaces, the following additional induced
the free gas expansion and decoupling effects. Once the gas hits the
compressive waves due to gas–rock interaction, and finally the
borehole wall, the expansion wave is reflected back as a shock
continued gas pressure on the borehole wall and its penetration
wave toward the borehole center. The wavy shape of Fig. 8 implies
into the rock damaged zones.
that in fact several expansion-shock waves are generated in the
The history of developed microcracks in the rock specimen is
borehole; the intensity of the shock waves within the gas decreases
shown in Fig. 10. The path from point A to B shows the growth
with time as the gas causes expansion of the blast hole and thus
of the crushed zone and the radial cracks with time. From point
increases in volume. The gas loses part of its energy during these
B to C, the rate of microcrack generation is reduced as the redial
impact episodes, which results in the reduction of the shock
strengths. To clarify, the gas velocity vectors at 43.7 ls are shown
in Fig. 9a. As the figure shows, the gas is reflecting toward the cen-
ter of the borehole. Eventually, the gas pressurizes at its center at
49.3 ls. This is consistent with the third peak pressure illustrated
in Fig. 8. In summary, it appears that at least when decoupling is
involved, the wall of the borehole is subjected to a few compressive
impacts before a more stable and uniform gas pressure is achieved
within the borehole. It is conceivable that for weaker rocks, the
number of gas–rock impact episodes would be less due to exten-
sive damage and expansion of the borehole wall upon the first
impact.
Because of multiple shock impacts to the blast hole, it is
expected that multiple compressive waves are induced in the Fig. 10. The time history of induced microcracks in the cylindrical rock specimen.

Fig. 9. Velocity vectors of smooth particles at (a) 43.7 ls showing the shock wave is reflecting back toward the borehole center, (b) 49.3 ls when the third peak pressure is
generated at the borehole center. (c) Multiple wave fronts within the rock specimen suggested by disk velocity vectors at 68.2 ls.
164 A. Fakhimi, M. Lanari / Computers and Geotechnics 55 (2014) 158–164
cracks gradually lose their initial momentum to extend (Fig. 5a). At
point C there is a jump in the number of cracks. This point corre-
sponds to the surface spalling that several cracks are created close
to the free boundary instantly. From D to E, the crack growth slows
down until the reflected wave at the free boundary and also the
subsequent weaker compressive waves start their journey through
the rock. During this period, the rate of crack growth (line EF) in-
creases even though the crack growth rate is expected to be smal-
ler than that along the AB line. Finally, an asymptotically reducing
rate in crack growth is achieved from point F toward G when the
slow gas infiltration into the damaged zones gradually prevails.
It is noted at the end that in this study, the increase in rock
strength due to dynamic loading was only modeled by considering
the inertia effects. In reality, some increase in rock strength due to
material rate dependency exists and needs to be implemented.
This task is currently underway by the authors.
8. Conclusion
A hybrid discrete element-smooth particle model was sug-
gested for numerical simulation of rock blasting. To the best
knowledge of the authors, this hybrid method has been used for
the first time for the simulation of rock blasting in this paper. Rock
is simulated with discrete circular disks that interact through con-
tact points. Gas is modeled with smooth particles. The interaction
of rock grains and smooth particles is assumed to follow a perfectly
plastic collision such that the momentum is conserved within the
colliding particles. The verification examples show that the imple-
mented SPH model in the CA2 computer program provides accept-
able results.
A couple of rock blasting exercises were conducted. In particu-
lar, the behavior of explosive gas in the blast hole was studied in
some detail. The numerical results suggest that the borehole wall
can be subjected to multiple impacts due to several episodes of
gas expansion and contraction with time. As a result, the radial
cracks that were induced and propagated by the first traveling
compressive wave in the rock can further gain energy and extend
as they are passed by subsequent traveling waves within the spec-
imen. The last stage of rock damage is caused by the infiltration of
expansive gas. The gas expansion and spread in the damaged zone
creates additional microcracks within the specimen. The rate of
crack growth seems to be slowest in this case, at least for the
numerical tests examined in this study.
The presence of a joint causes wave reflection at the joint sur-
face. As a consequence, the damaged zone is intensified between
the blast hole and joint surface. This can result in loss of blasting
energy with greater crushed zone around the blast hole.
References
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