Effect of powder factor and timing on the impact breakage of

rocks

P. D. Katsabanis, S. Kim, A. Tawadrous and J. Sigler

Queen’s University, Department of Mining Engineering

ABSTRACT
A series of small scale tests have been performed to establish the effect of powder factor and initiation
timing on the grindability of rocks. The blasts were performed in high quality granite blocks, which
were cut from stone prepared by dimensional stone quarry operations. Three different types of granite
were tested. The charge configurations included detonating cord placed in five holes with water as a
coupling medium or concentrated charges of equal mass, placed in the same number of holes, fully
stemmed or air decked. The powder factor was varied from 0.4 to 1.2 kg/m3. Typically all charges were
detonated simultaneously; however, in some experiments, detonation waves collided in the middle of
each borehole and in others a small delay was used between charges. All fragments were collected and
screened, and drop weight impact tests were performed on selected size fractions, using different impact
energy, to calculate the resistance of the rock to impact breakage. The work index of some of the blasted
samples was measured using a standard Bond mill arrangement. The experiments generally showed
increased softening of the rock with powder factor, which appeared to be the dominant factor. Charge
configuration as well as in-hole collisions of detonation waves affected the initial fragmentation but had
little effect on the impact breakage of the samples.

Keywords: Blast fragmentation; Delay time; Small scale testing; fragmentation; grindability; impact
breakage

Introduction
The importance of blasting to mill operations has been discussed in a series of publications, especially in
the last decade. The literature suggests that there are two types of benefits from finer blast fragmen-
tation: productivity increases and decreased energy requirements at the mill.
Kojovic, Michaux and McKenzie (1995) have shown that increased powder factors resulted in less nec-
essary crushing in a quarry operation with significant economic advantages. Grunstrom, Kanchibotla,
Jankovich and Thorton (1995) showed that increased powder factors (from 0.24 kg/t to 0.31 kg/t in a
gold mine) resulted in 25% increase of throughput in SAG mills. They suggested that in this particular
operation, increase of fines production by blasting was beneficial, increasing mill throughput.
Energy savings at the grinding stage have serious implications. Eloranta (1997) through some data, col-
lected from taconite mines in Minnesota, has shown reduction of total costs with increasing powder

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 1 of 12
factors. He explained this by the reduction in energy requirements for the milling of blasted rock.
Nielsen (1999) has reported that underground mines typically experience an increase in the productivity
of the coarse grinding circuit when the ore comes from development work, where powder factors are
high. It appears that the increased level of damage of the rock mass by development blasting has a
significant effect in down stream operations. Nielsen (1996) has indicated that high shock energy
explosives and high powder factors reduced the crushing and grinding resistance of ores. The same
author has suggested (1996) significant reductions of the Work index of the blasted material. McCarter
(1996) showed that the fracture resistance of some rocks was reduced after blasting. However some of
the rocks, which were affected by blasting in Nielsen’s work, appeared not to be affected in McCarter’s
work. Unfortunately, due to the time required to conduct grindability tests, in both cases, the grindability
tests were not standardised, making comparison impossible. Nielsen’s work was based on a relative test,
which is in accordance with Bond’s laws; however very high work index modifications have been
reported in the case of some rocks. It was decided to investigate these findings, conducting tests in small
blocks of previously unblasted, high quality granites and analyse the results using sieving, drop weight
impact and standard Bond ball mills to determine changes in the fragmentation, impact breakage and
work index of the samples.

Experimental work
The experimental work involved blasting of small blocks of different granites, Barre, Laurentian and
Stanstead, having dimensions 25cm x 25cm x 25cm. The explosive used was typically detonating cord
placed inside boreholes having a diameter of 11mm. Five boreholes were drilled using a dice pattern
with four boreholes drilled at the corners of a 12.5cm x 12.5cm square and the fifth hole placed at the
centre of the square. The coupling medium was water. In some experiments, the explosive was waxed
RDX, the mass of which was adjusted to provide the same energy as the PETN of the detonating cords.
The purpose of the experiments was to investigate the role of the powder factor, charge distribution and
timing on fragmentation and grindability.

Effect of powder factor

The powder factor was modified changing the number of detonating cord lengths used per borehole. The
fragments were collected and screened and subjected to a drop weight test to produce single particle
fragmentation curves. The drop weight device consisted of a 21.6kg projectile made of steel which falls
under gravity on a particle placed on a steel anvil. A cylindrical guide assures vertical orientation of the
projectile. The resulting fragments are then screened and plots of cumulative size distributions are
established for different impact energies, achieved using different drop heights. The analysis is per-
formed according to Napier-Munn et al. (1996). The point of interest in each of the post impact frag-
mentation curves is the percent passing 1/10 of the initial mean particle size. This is related to the impact
energy, according to the following formula:

– bE cs
t 10 = A ( 1 – e )

where t10 is the percent passing the 1/10 of the initial size, Ecs is the specific impact energy (kWh/t) and
A and b are breakage parameters. Parameter t10 indicates how fine the distribution is. A larger t10
indicates a finer distribution. In the above formula A is the limiting value of t10 while b is related to the

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 2 of 12
gradient for a constant value of A. Parameter A could be interpreted as the percentage of t10 at infinite
impact energy and could be a characteristic property of the material. Typically variables A and b on their
own do not carry a significant meaning. However, the product Ab is the initial slope of the curve,
indicative of the effect of initial energy input on size reduction. As such, it is considered the best
indication of “softening”, or decrease of resistance of the rock to impact forces during milling.
According to Napier-Munn et al. (1996) the product Ab correlates well with performance of SAG mills.
Other work, performed on the fragments of the tests, was work index determination, using a standard
Bond mill to examine the possibility of energy savings in ball mills.
Fragment distribution curves for the three different granites are shown in Figures 1-3. The continuous
lines refer to the Swebrec function (Ouchterlony, 2005) fits of the data, which look fairly good and
generally far superior to the Rosin-Rammler fits. Figure 4 shows typical fits on a log-log plot, for Rosin
Rammler and Swebrec, where the problems of Rosin-Rammler in describing fines are quite apparent.
Clearly, powder factor had a dominant effect on fragmentation, something that is expected. Table 1
shows the analysis of the results of the fit of t10 to Ecs. Since there is moderate scatter on the
experimental data, the 95% confidence limits of the initial slope of the curve, represented by the product
Ab, are given. Parameter A was constrained, with a maximum value of 100, as it is impossible, at infinite
energy inputs, to get more than 100% of the material below the 1/10 of the original particle size. This
parameter changes with the increase of the powder factor, although the differences in its value, after the
initial powder factor of 0.39 kg/m3, do not appear to be statistically significant. The product Ab is
typically increasing, indicating that the material becomes softer with the increase of powder factor. The
change of the product Ab from the powder factor of 0.79 kg/m3 to 1.17 kg/m3 is also not as large as the
change from powder factor of 0.39 kg/m3 to the powder factor of 0.791kg/m3 indicating that high impact
energies are less efficient than low impact ones.
Bond mill tests were also performed on the same samples to identify changes of the work index as a
function of powder factor. Table 2 shows the results of the Bond tests. Changes of the work index were
observed, although these changes are lower than the ones reported in the literature (Nielsen, 1996).

Effect of charge distribution

The effect of charge distribution was examined in the case of Barre granite. Various charge configura-
tions were tested at the powder factor of 1.17 kg/m3. The explosive was changed to pressed waxed RDX,
placed at the bottom of the holes and was initiated using a detonator in each hole. The test con-
figurations used had the charges placed at the bottom of 23cm deep holes without stemming or with a
small airdeck, and charges placed at the middle of the block, at the bottom of 14cm deep holes with and
without stemming. The stemming used was fast setting cement and initiation was achieved using seismic
electric detonators. Fragmentation distribution curves are shown in Figure 5 . Clearly, charge location
and stemming were important in the present small scale tests. Table 3 shows the analysis of the drop
weight tests for the same experiments. Although certain similarities exist between the fragmentation
trends and the breakage parameter Ab trends, some differences also exist. The unstemmed charges had
the lowest breakage parameter value, while the distributed charge had the highest. It also appears that
stemming resulted in increase of the softening of the rock.

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 3 of 12
 100

80
Percent passing

60

40

20 q = 0.39 kg/m3
q = 0.78 kg/m3
q = 1.17 kg/m3

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size, mm
Figure 1. Fragmentation distributions of Barre Granite at various explosive concentrations

100

80
Percent passing

60

40

20 q=0.39 kg/m3
q=0.78 kg/m3
q=1.17 kg/m3

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size, mm
Figure 2. Fragmentation distributions of Stanstead Granite at various explosive concentrations

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 100

80
Percent passing

60

40

20 q = 0.39 kg/m3
q = 0.78 kg/m3
q = 1.17 kg/m3

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size, mm
Figure 3. Fragmentation distributions of Laurentian granite at various explosive concentrations

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 5 of 12
 100

10
Percent passing

Sieving
Rosin Rammler
Swebrec

0.1
0.1 1 10 100 1000

Size, mm

Figure 4. Difference between Swebrec and Rosin Rammler functions

Table 1: Analysis of drop weight tests

q, kg/m3 A b Ab lower 95% upper 95%

conf. for Ab conf. for Ab
Barre unblasted 100 0.33 33 20 42
0.39 61 1.02 62.2 58.2 66.7
0.78 57.4 1.3 72.3 65.1 79.3
1.17 58.8 1.4 80.3 73.7 86.9
Stanstead unblasted 86.6 0.5 43.6 25.8 61.4
0.39 70 1.56 109.2 92.1 126.6
0.78 69.6 2.13 148 136 160
1.17 66.03 2.45 161.8 144.6 179.4
Laurentian unblasted 100 0.21 21 16 27
0.39 61.9 0.75 46.4 40.6 52.2
0.78 57.7 1.07 61.7 54.1 69.3
1.17 65.8 0.92 60.5 52.4 68.7

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 6 of 12
 Table 2: Results of Bond mill tests

q, kg/m3 Wi, kWh/t % change from

unblasted
Barre unblasted 12.2
0.39 11.75 3.6
0.78 11.43 6.3
1.17 11.61 4.8
Stanstead unblasted 12.57
0.39 11.58 7.9
0.78 11.59 7.8
1.17 11.23 10.7
Laurentian unblasted 11.56
0.39 11.23 2.9
0.78 10.99 4.9
1.17 10.62 8.1

Effect of timing
All previous tests involved simultaneous initiation of all five charges. The effect of delay as well as the
effect of in hole collisions of detonation waves was examined in another series of experiments. Delay
times were adjusted molifying the length of detonating cord outside each hole, so that a certain delay
pattern was established. Figures 6-8 show the effect of mid-hole collision of the detonation waves and
delay time on the fragmentation of the various granites. One repeat test was conducted in the case of the
Laurentian granite and the 20µs delays and is denoted as 20 mus -r in the graph. Clearly the repeatability
in the smaller fragment sizes is excellent and the only discrepancy comes from fragments coming from
the boundaries, which are influenced by the geometry of the samples.

Table 3: Analysis of drop weight tests related to charge distribution

Configuration A b Ab lower 95% upper 95%

conf. for Ab conf. for Ab
Distributed charge 58.8 1.4 80.3 73.7 86.9
Air decking 58.6 1.03 60.1 56.9 63.3
Bottom charge 63.3 0.93 58.6 53.2 64
unstemmed
Middle charge 62.8 1.01 63.3 59.1 67.5
stemmed
Middle charge 68.3 0.8 55.4 50.9 60
unstemmed

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 100

80
Percent passing

60

40

Distributed charge
Air decking
20 Bottom charge unstemmed
Middle charge stemmed
Middle charge unstemmed

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Size, mm
Figure 5. Fragmentation curves for various charge configurations

The analysis of the drop weight tests is shown in Table 4.

Discussion
Effect of powder factor
Clearly explosives consumption affected the breakage parameter Ab, which expresses the initial slope of
the t10 - impact energy relationship, representing the softness of the rock. The parameter definitely
increases when compared to unblasted rock and there is a statistically significant increase from the
powder factor of 0.39kg/m3 to 0.78kg/m3.

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 100

80
Percent passing

60

40

20
Simultaneous
Collision in hole

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size, mm
Figure 6. Effect of mid-hole collision on the fragmentation of Barre granite

100

80
Percent passing

60

40

20 Instantaneous
In hole collision
Delay: 10mus

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size, mm
Figure 7. Effect of mid-hole collision and time on the fragmentation of Stanstead granite

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 100

80
Percent Passing

60

40

Simultaneous
20 Collision
delay: 10 mus
delay: 20 mus
delay: 20mus - r
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Size
Figure 8. Effect of mid-hole collision and time on the fragmentation of Laurentian granite

Table 4: Analysis of drop weight tests related to timing

Granite Configuration A b Ab lower 95% upper 95%

conf. for Ab conf. for Ab
Barre Simultaneous 58.8 1.4 80.3 73.7 86.9
Collision 67.63 1.16 78.7 71.5 85.9
Stanstead Simultaneous 66.03 2.45 161.8 144.6 179.4
Collision 68.6 2.54 174 152.4 196
Delay: 10µs 74.6 2.23 166 147.5 185.1
Laurentian Simultaneous 65.8 0.92 60.5 52.4 68.7
Collision 66.8 1.59 106.1 93.3 118.9
Delay: 10µs 68.1 1.27 86.6 71.1 102
Delay: 20µs 67.2 1 67.2 49.8 83.9

The change of Ab from 0.78kg/m3 to 1.17kg/m3 is statistically significant in the cases of Barre and
Stanstead granites, while there does not appear to be any change of the parameter in the case of
Laurentian, although fragmentation was different. The reason for the different behaviour of Laurentian is
not known yet. Laurentian granite was initially very hard. However, after the application of explosive
energy with a powder factor of 0.78kg/m3, it can be considered soft in grinding. Stanstead is soft at the
beginning and becomes very soft after blasting using an explosive concentration of 0.38 kg/m3.
The Bond mill tests showed a small decrease of work index as a function of powder factor, which
appears to be material dependant.

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Effect of charge distribution
Clearly, stemming affected fragmentation results and the stemmed charges produced finer
fragmentation. Stemming also appears to have resulted in softer rock. The distributed charge produced
very good fragmentation and significantly higher Ab (breakage) parameter, suggesting that it increased
the softness of the rock.

Effect of timing
In hole collisions had a detrimental effect on the fragmentation of Barre and Stanstead granites and an
insignificant effect on the fragmentation of Laurentian. Timing, as expected influenced the
fragmentation of Stanstead and Laurentian granites. Clearly the coarsest fragmentation was achieved
with simultaneous initiation of all charges. The optimum time was not obtained in this study. As far as
effects on impact breakage, it appears that collisions did not influence the Ab parameter in any
significant fashion in the cases of Barre and Stanstead, while the effect on Laurentian was significant.
Timing, in the case of Laurentian, played a role in the case of the 10 µs delay, where the rock fragments
were significantly softer than the rock fragments resulting from instantaneous initiation. The 20 µs delay
does not appear to have as much an effect, suggesting that the 20µs delay may have been too long for
grindability improvements.

Conclusion
Apart from influencing fragmentation, powder factor influences the impact breakage of rocks, affecting
the cost of further size reduction. The work showed that the initial slope of the t10 - impact energy
relationship increases with powder factor, although the work suggested that at high powder factors such
increase may be smaller than at low powder factor, or not significant. Charge distribution is also a
factor, where the best fragmentation and highest initial slope of the t10-impact energy curve were
obtained for the distributed charge. In hole collision appeared to be effective only in the case of
Laurentian granite while delay timing appears to be a factor controlling the breaking resistance of rocks.

References
Grundstrom, C., Kanchibotla, S.S., Jankovich, A. and Thornton, D. (2001): “Blast Fragmentation for
Maximising the Sag Mill Throughput at Porgera Gold Mine”. Proceedings of the 27th Annual
Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique, International Society of Explosives Engineers. Vol.
1, pp. 383-399.

Kojovic, T., Michaux, S. and McKenzie, C.(1995): “Impact of Blast Fragmentation on Crushing and
Screening Operations in Quarrying”. Proceedings, EXPLO 95, The Australasian Institute of Mining and
Metallurgy in association with the International Society of Explosives Engineers, Brisbane, Australia, 4-
7 Sep. 1995, pp.427-436.

Eloranta, J. (1997): “The Efficiency of Blasting Versus Crushing and Grinding”, Proceedings of the
23rd Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique, International Society of Explosives
Engineers. pp. 157-163.

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2008G Volume 2 - Effect of Powder Factor and Timing on the Impact Breakage of Rocks 11 of 12
McCarter, M.K. (1996): “Effect of Blast Preconditioning on Comminution for Selected Rock Types”.
Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Research, International Society of
Explosives Engineers, Orlando, Florida, February 4-8, 1996, pp. 119-129.

Napier-Munn et al. (1996): “Mineral Comminution Circuits”. JKMRC Monograph Series in Mining and
Mineral Processing, JKMRC.

Nielsen, K. and Kristiansen, J.(1996): “Blasting-crushing-grinding: Optimization of an integrated

comminution system”. Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by
Blasting - FRAGBLAST-5. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Aug. 25-29 1996, pp.269-278.

Nielsen, K. (1999): “Mine through mill reconciliation. Can we really make it happen”. Minnesota's First
International Surface Blasting Conference, Duluth, Minnesota, USA, pp. 125-141.

Ouchterlony, F. (2005): “What does the fragment size distribution of blasted rock look like?” 3rd EFEE
Conference Proc., Brighton, England, pp. 189-199.

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