International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

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International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrmms

Model experimental study on the effects of in situ stresses on pre-splitting

blasting damage and strain development
Liyun Yang a, Aiyun Yang a, Siyu Chen a, *, Shizheng Fang b, Chen Huang a, Huanzhen Xie a
a
School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
b
School of Civil and Resource Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the process of drilling and blasting in deep underground engineering, in situ stress is usually considered as an
In situ stress essential factor for blasting parameter design. To explore the effect of the in situ stress value and direction on pre-
Pre-splitting blasting splitting blasting (PSB), the blasting failure characteristics of a rock mass under different stress conditions are
Digital image correlation
experimentally simulated by applying vertical and horizontal uniaxial pressures and blasting load to gypsum
Damage
specimens. First, fractal theory is implemented to study the influence of uniaxial pressure on crack propagation
and distribution. Second, based on the digital image correlation method, the development of strain in the sur­
rounding rock is revealed. Finally, the damage distribution characteristics of the specimens after blasting are
studied by using the acoustic wave detection. The results indicate that the value and direction of uniaxial
pressure have a significant influence on PSB. Hence, when the direction of uniaxial pressure is parallel to the
blasthole layout, the crack path is relatively straight. The damage of gypsum specimens decreases with the in­
crease in uniaxial pressure. The attenuation amplitude of the peak strain in the parallel direction with the dis­
tance is much smaller than that in the vertical direction. When the direction of the uniaxial pressure is
perpendicular to the direction of blasthole layout, the damage of specimen after blasting is substantial and is not
conducive to the formation of cracks.

1. Introduction vibrations induced by smooth blasting and pre-splitting blasting to un­

The drilling and blasting method (DBM) is still the primary method
for excavation of underground cavern rock masses in tunnels, mines, and
hydroelectric projects worldwide. The DBM is a more economical
method compared to other mechanical methods utilizing rock breakers,
tunnel boring machines, and road headers especially with regard to
excavation in varying geological conditions. The advantages of the DBM,
such as the low initial investment, easy acceptability among the blasting
engineers, as well as reasonable and faster advance rates, make it a
preferred method of rock excavation. However, blasting operation
inevitably causes blasting vibration and damage to surrounding rock,
which reduces the surrounding rock strength and stability. To lessen the
negative effect, smooth blasting and pre-splitting blasting were pro­
posed. Some scholars researched the damage and vibrations induced by
smooth blasting and pre-splitting blasting. Hu et al.1 focused on the
comparison of damage induced by smooth blasting and pre-splitting
blasting for excavation of rock slopes. Zhou et al.2 monitored ground
derstand the differences between the two methods for the excavation of
vertical shafts. It has been shown that pre-splitting blasting (PSB) pro­
duces a pre-crack between the blasting area and the surrounding rock,
which can prevent stress waves from travelling through the surrounding
rock, reduce the damage or destruction of the rock outside the excava­
tion scope, and maintain the original strength and stability of the rock.
As a kind of drilling and blasting method, PSB has been paid more
and more attention. Over the past two decades, experts and scholars
have studied and provided important information about PSB. Several
factors influencing PSB have been explored in several studies. Singh
et al.3 discussed PSB parameter design, such as the hole position,
decoupling coefficient, and charge amount based on the field project at
the Rampura Agucha open-pit mine in India. Shi et al.4 used a model test
to study the relationship between the pre-splitting crack width, charge,
filling medium, and vibration reduction effect. Li and He5,6 studied the
effects of blasting under different blasting parameters and optimally
designed the PSB parameters by numerical calculations. Kim et al.7

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: yangly@cumtb.edu.cn (L. Yang), 18813151059@163.com (A. Yang), bqt_siyuchen@163.com (S. Chen), szfang89@163.com (S. Fang),
huangchen4510@sina.com (C. Huang), xiehuanzhen00@163.com (H. Xie).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2020.104587
Received 25 November 2019; Received in revised form 21 October 2020; Accepted 21 December 2020
Available online 1 January 2021
1365-1609/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

studied the characteristics of rock joints on the slope and the damage This experiment focuses on the study of rock PSB phenomenon and
area caused by PSB. It is found that the discontinuity pattern on rock development, and simulates the process of crack propagation in the
surfaces needs to be investigated in advance when the jointed rock slope blasting, so similarity ratio is not set.
is excavated by the presplitting method. Ma et al.8 imposed a scheme for A blasting load experimental platform is designed, which uses a jack
detecting blast vibration. The scheme was worked out by taking the blast to apply uniaxial pressure on the gypsum specimens to simulate in situ
area with a precrack rear and non-precrack side of the detection object. stress.28 The loading direction is vertical, and the value is measured by a
The results show that PSB plays an important role in blasting damping. pressure cell between the loading plates and the lifting jack, which can
Some scholars have used the deep-hole PSB method to weaken the thick accurately control the value of applied pressure. When the pressure
hard roof in a coal mine to mitigate active strata behaviors.9–11 Mean­ reaches the designed value, the lifting jack is locked to keep the pressure
while, Ti et al.12 proposed deep hole PSB technology to improve the stable.
permeability of coal seam gas drainage, increase the quantity and rate of
extraction, and reduce methane output.
2.2. Blasting parameter design
Recently, the extent of underground exploitation has increased.
Therefore, there has been growing interest by researchers and engineers
In this experiment, a homemade explosive cartridge is used to
in the influence of high in situ stress on the blasting fragmentation of
experimentally test the explosion. The homemade explosive cartridge
deep rock masses. It has been found that the in situ stress exerts sig­
consists of medicine bags, plastic tubes, wires, probes and plasticine.
nificant influence on the rock fracture induced by blasting oper­
The explosive is placed in a polyethylene plastic tube. The length of
ations.13–17 Lu et al.18 found that a reasonable excavation sequence and
charge is 30 mm, the length of the tube is 40 mm, and the diameter of the
contour blasting method is one of the key techniques for the construc­
tube is 5 mm. The parameters of the tube are listed in Table 1. The two
tion of underground powerhouses. Hu et al.19 analysed crack formation
ends of the tube are sealed with plasticine. A probe is embedded at the
with a mathematical model during PSB considering the in situ stress and
bottom of the tube, which generates a high-voltage spark to initiate the
found that the in situ stress can inhibit crack formation. At the same
explosive.
time, as a kind of polycrystalline structure, rock still has some residual
The layout of the blastholes is shown in Fig. 1. Three blastholes
stress before PSB. Salvati et al.20 used FIB-DIC and numerical simulation
which have the same geometric size, are arranged in the medial axis of
to analyze the change of residual stress in multi-scale from macro and
the specimen. The diameter of the blastholes is 7 mm, the depth of the
micro perspectives. Fan et al.21 studied the residual stress between the
blastholes is 60 mm, the space between two adjacent blastholes is 40
matrix material and the defect under discontinuous three-dimensional
mm, and the decoupling coefficient is 1.4. The blastholes are sealed with
compression. In the simulation process, it is observed that the larger
sand and glue, and the charges are placed in the blastholes. The hole-
the difference of elastic modulus between the matrix material and the
bottom detonating method is used in this experiment.
impurity, the greater the residual stress. Zhu et al.22 unified strength
expression based on Lade-Duncan and SMP criteria is derived by using
the plane strength theory, and the unified nonlinear constitutive equa­ 2.3. Principles of digital image correlation
tion of rock residual stress is established combining with the mechanical
characteristics of post peak strain softening of rock materials. Digital image correlation (DIC) is an optical method for measuring
If we want to determine the influence of in situ stress on the PSB, two deformation and displacement. The principle of this method consists of
factors must be taken into consideration. The first one is the influence of the following three steps. First, the speckle image is analysed before and
in situ stress value on the PSB, the second is the influence of in situ stress after surface deformation by the image matching method. Then, the
direction on the PSB. However, few attempts have been made to displacement field is obtained by taking the displacement of the speckle.
investigate the effect of in situ stress on the PSB through a model test. To Finally, the strain field is calculated according to the displacement
date, there is still a lack of knowledge about the influence of the in situ field.29–32 A schematic diagram of the principle is shown in Fig. 2.
stress on the PSB. According to Fig. 3, the coordinate relationship of the central P (x0,
The effect of in situ stress on PSB is studied in this paper. The main y0) points in the sub-region during deformation as follows.
contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows. The PSB { ′′
model test is designed, and the formation patterns of pre-cracks are x0 = x0 + u
(1)
explored; According to the fractal theory, the variation in the fractal
′′
y0 = y0 + u
dimension under different uniaxial pressures is analysed; The attenua­
Based on linear continuum mechanics, the displacement of a point is
tion of specimen strain during blasting is studied utilizing digital image
expressed by the displacement increment at this point and the
correlation method; The damage of the specimen is researched using an
displacement of its adjacent point. The displacement component of any
acoustic wave test.
point Q (x, y) in the reference sub-region can be expressed as
⎧
2. Specimen preparation and test process ⎪ ′′ ∂u ∂u
⎪
⎨ uQ = u + ∂xΔx + ∂y Δy
⎪
2.1. Specimen preparation (2)
⎪
⎪ v′ ′ = v + ∂vΔx + ∂vΔy
⎪
⎩ Q
∂x ∂y
A typical characteristic of rock is anisotropic, which has a remark­
able impact on stress wave propagation.23,24 Gypsum, as a kind of rock where u is the vertical displacement, v is the horizontal displacement,
material, has been widely used in previous experiments to study the and x and y are the horizontal and vertical deformation, respectively.
mechanical properties of rock.25–27 In this experiment, gypsum speci­ The area of interest (AOI) in the experiment is the local center area of
mens are used to simulate the surrounding rock, so as to overcome the
interference caused by rock anisotropy. The specimen is a cube with
Table 1
exterior dimensions of 200 mm × 200 mm, which is constructed with
Explosive cartridge parameters.
gypsum, water, and a retarder with a mass ratio of 1:0.4:0.005. The
Detonation Explosive Tube Tube Charge Density
density of the gypsum specimen is 1.45 g/cm3; the static uniaxial
velocity v/(m/ amount m/ diameter length length ρ/(g/
compressive strength is 3.7 MPa; the Poisson’s ratio is 0.31. The average s) mg D2/mm L1/mm L0/mm cm3)
P-wave velocity of different specimens is 1600 m/s. The specimens are
400 250 5 40 30 0.523
uniform and isotropic, which satisfy the experimental requirements.

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L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

Fig. 1. Blasthole schematic diagram

(a) Schematic diagram of the blastholes; (b) Top view of the blasthole; (c) Front view of the blasthole.

Fig. 2. Speckle image on the surface of the specimen.

approximately 80 mm × 200 mm around the pre-crack, as illustrated in

Fig. 2. The splashing method is used to fabricate speckles on the surface
of the specimens for the DIC test. First, the surface of the specimen is
cleaned and repaired to ensure sufficient smooth. Then, some black
speckles are printed on the surface of the specimens. The size of the
speckles and the average grey gradient of the random distribution
should be controlled to meet experimental requirements.33,34 Fig. 3. DIC basic principles.

2.4. Test equipment and scheme
The high-speed digital image correlation system is mainly composed
of a high-speed camera, lighting system, and synchronous control sys­
tem.35 The characteristic of high-speed camera is to realize high-speed
image acquisition without reducing the resolution. The resolution of
the single-shot image is 924 × 768 pixels, the number of acquisitions is
180, and the fastest acquisition speed is 5 million fps.
According to previous research,35,36 the value and direction of uni­
axial pressure play a significant role in the propagation of blasting
cracks. To explore the influence of the value and direction of uniaxial
pressure on the crack propagation and damage distribution of the rock
mass during pre-splitting blasting, five groups of test schemes are
designed and named as Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, and Y5. To study the influence of
in situ stress direction on rock mass blasting, two cases with the blast­
hole layout direction parallel or perpendicular to the in situ stress di­
rection are selected. Among them, when the direction of blasthole layout
is parallel to the direction of uniaxial pressure, the vertical loads of 0
MPa, 1 MPa and 2 MPa are applied to specimens Y1, Y2 and Y3 as the
initial stress. When the direction of the blasthole layout is perpendicular
to the uniaxial pressure direction, the vertical loads of 1 MPa and 2 MPa
are applied to specimens Y4 and Y5 as the initial stress, respectively. The
damage morphology and distribution characteristics, and strain evolu­
tion of the specimens were compared and analysed under different
initial stresses. The specific parameters are provided in Table 2.

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L. Yang et al.
Table 2
Design of the pre-splitting blasting tests.
No. Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5
Direction of blasthole Null Vertical Vertical Horizontal Horizontal
layout
Uniaxial pressure/MPa 0 1 2 1 2 The damage fractal dimension of the specimen before blasting is
3. Experimental results and analysis
3.1. Crack morphology
The characteristics of the crack formation between the blastholes
reflect the result of PSB. To analyze the distribution characteristics of the
surface cracks between blastholes. The surfaces of the specimens are
polished carefully to remove the speckles and enhance the chromatic
aberration between the surrounding medium and the crack area. Then,
the front of the specimen is photographed. The obtained images are
binarized and the appearance of cracks is extracted. The failure mode of
the specimen and the results of the binary crack treatment are shown in
Table 3.
By comparing the morphology of the specimens, it can be found that
the uniaxial pressure has a significant effect on the surface crack for­
mation. (1) In the case that the blasthole layout direction is parallel to
the uniaxial pressure direction, some through cracks among the blast­
holes are considered to be the main cracks. The main crack appears on
the surface of the specimen and its propagation direction is parallel to
the uniaxial pressure direction. When the vertical uniaxial pressure is 0
MPa, there is a small deviation between the crack and the profile line.
With the increase in the uniaxial pressure (1 MPa and 2 MPa), the crack
between the blastholes gradually becomes consistent and almost over­
laps with the profile line. (2) In the case that the direction of the
blasthole layout is perpendicular to the direction of the uniaxial pres­
sure, the distribution of the cracks between blastholes is irregular. First
of all, when the vertical pressure is 1 MPa, the main crack is only formed
among the three blastholes and does not extend to the boundary of the
specimen. When the vertical uniaxial pressure increases to 2 MPa, only a
tiny crack is formed among the blastholes. With the existence of uniaxial
pressure, a small number of vertical cracks are produced around the
blasthole, which are parallel to the direction of uniaxial pressure (as
shown in Fig. 8). Additionally, it can be observed that surface of the
specimen is noticeably damaged with the increase in uniaxial pressure.
Therefore, it is concluded that the uniaxial pressure has an apparent
guiding effect on crack propagation, and the crack tends to propagate
along the direction of the uniaxial pressure.
3.2. Fractal characteristics of cracks among the blastholes
In this section, fractal theory is introduced to calculate the fractal
dimension of the cracks among the blastholes. To study the effect of
vertical pressure on the cracks between the blastholes, the crack profile
(a square area 80 mm long and 80 mm wide) extracted from section 3.1
was selected as shown in Fig. 4. The damage patterns of the cracks be­
tween the blastholes are analysed. The relationships between the value
and direction of uniaxial pressure and the damage of the specimen are
established as follows.
There are many methods for calculating the fractal dimension. In this
paper, box-counting dimension is used to represent the damage variable
after blasting, which directly reflects the distribution of the research
target in the AOI. The equation for calculating the fractal dimension of
the box-counting dimension is as follows 37:
lgNr = Df lgr + b
where r is the side length of a small square, Nr is the number of small
squares that cover the image, b is the fitted constant. The straight slope
International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587
is fractal dimension Df.38
In order to obtain the fractal dimension Df, first, the related values of
r and Nr are obtained by processing the data. Second, the two values are
plotted by linear regression analysis in the double logarithmic coordi­
nate system, and a linear correlation line is obtained.
defined as Df0 = 0. The fractal dimension of the maximum damage area
is defined as Dmax
f = 2. Based on the fractal value corresponding to the
surface crack region, Af of the specimen in the above figure is Df. The
relative damage value Ω is calculated and obtained by Df.38
( ) / ( max ) /
Ω = Df − Df 0 Df − Df 0 = Df Dmax = 0.5Df (4)
f
Based on the above analysis, the relative damage effectively reflects
the failure degree of the specimen surface after specimen blasting. It can
be seen from Fig. 5 that, (1) when the direction of the blasthole layout is
parallel to the direction of uniaxial pressure, the relative damage de­
creases with increasing uniaxial pressure. The reason is that the gener­
ation of cracks among the blastholes becomes relatively straight in terms
of the increase in uniaxial pressure. (2) When the direction of the
blasthole layout is perpendicular to the direction of the uniaxial pres­
sure, there is a steady increase in relative damage due to the increase of
uniaxial pressure. The relative damage is significantly larger than that
without uniaxial pressure. This is because the uniaxial pressure has a
certain guiding effect on the crack propagation, and the vertical crack
occurs on the surface of the specimen after blasting. The guiding effect is
noticeably improved with increasing uniaxial pressure.
3.3. Strain evolution of the surrounding rock
When macroscopic cracks are generated in the rock mass, damage
also inevitably appears. Hence, the strain development is used to express
the deformation characteristics of the specimen under different uniaxial
pressure conditions. The strain fields of each specimen (Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4
and Y5) are calculated by the DIC method, and the calculated region is
shown in Fig. 2 (rectangular region denoted with a yellow dashed line).
Fig. 6 shows the process of Mises strain evolution on the surface of
specimen Y1. The strain concentration area first appears around the
blasthole. The strain concentration area among the three blastholes is
increasing gradually with time. The development of the strain field of
the other specimens are basically consistent with that of specimen Y1,
and the main difference is the value of the strain field.
To study the influence of the uniaxial pressure on strain develop­
ment, a Cartesian coordinate system is established with the middle
blasthole as the original point. The direction of the blasthole layout is
named as the Y-axis and the vertical direction is named as the X-axis.
Three points are selected as the monitoring point. The coordinates of P1,
P2, and P3 are (10 mm, 0 mm), (15 mm, 0 mm) and (20 mm, 0 mm),
respectively. The strain vs. time curves of the P1–P3 points are extracted
and described in Fig. 7.
As shown in Figs. 7 and 8, (1) when the blasthole layout direction is
parallel to the uniaxial pressure direction (specimens Y1, Y2, and Y3),
the stress wave propagates to the point P1 at 300 μs and reaches the peak
at 360 μs. Comparied with the value of the peak strain at point P1, the
peak strain decreases when the blasting stress wave reaches point P2,
and the attenuation amplitudes is 37.6%, 41.2% and 41.5%, respec­
tively. When the blasting stress wave reaches point P3, the peak strain
further decreases. (2) When the blasthole layout direction is perpen­
dicular to the uniaxial pressure direction (specimen Y4 and Y5), the
blasting stress wave of the three specimens propagates to point P1 at 300
μs, and reaches the peak at 360 μs, 500 μs and 560 μs, respectively. The
surface strain of the specimen reaches the peak at point P2 at 440 μs, 600
(3) μs and 640 μs. Compared with the peak strain at point P1, the peak strain
decreases sharply at point P2, and the attenuation amplitudes are
37.6%, 76.7% and 96.3%. The peak strain decreases further at point P3.
The uniaxial pressure has a visible effect on the strain attenuation,
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L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

Table 3
Morphological characteristics of cracks after pre-splitting blasting.

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L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

Fig. 4. Crack patterns among the blastholes.

the blasthole layout is parallel to the uniaxial pressure direction, the

attenuation amplitude of peak strain with distance is much smaller than
that of vertical strain.

3.4. Strain field among blastholes

The strain field among the blastholes is analysed as follows. The

points P4 (0,20 mm) and P5 (0, − 20 mm) are selected as the monitoring
point and the strain vs. time curves of P4 and P5 are extracted, as shown
in Fig. 9. When the direction of the blasthole layout is parallel to the
direction of the uniaxial pressure, the average values of P4 and P5 are
0.115, 0.120, 0.121 for specimens Y1, Y2 and Y3, respectively. When the
direction of the blasthole layout is perpendicular to the uniaxial pressure
direction, the average values of P4 and P5 are 0.048, 0.028 for speci­
mens Y4 and Y5, respectively.
When the direction of the blasthole layout is parallel to the direction
of the uniaxial pressure, the average peak strain of the material between
the blastholes increases with the uniaxial pressure. When the direction
of the blasthole layout is perpendicular to the uniaxial pressure direc­
tion, the average peak strain of the material between the blastholes
Fig. 5. Linear fitting in a double logarithmic coordinate system.
decreases significantly with increasing uniaxial pressure.

and the peak strain decreases with the increase in uniaxial pressure.
When the uniaxial pressures are equal, the uniaxial pressure direction 3.5. Damage degree of the surrounding rock
has a distinct effect on the peak strain attenuation. When the direction of
Damage degree D is an important index to evaluate the damage

Fig. 6. Variation in the Mises strain field of specimen Y1.

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L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

Fig. 7. Strain vs. time curve of each point.

Fig. 8. Fitting curve of the peak strain.

characteristics of the surrounding rock mass. Currently, the commonly
used damage characterization parameters include the elastic modulus,
density and longitudinal wave velocity.39 In this paper, the damage
degree is calculated by the longitudinal wave velocity, and the calcu­
lation formula is listed in Eq. (7).
D = 1 − E / E0 = 1 − (V/V0 )2
where E0 is the elastic modulus of the gypsum specimen before blasting,
E is the equivalent elastic modulus of the gypsum specimen after
blasting, V0 is the acoustic velocity of the gypsum specimen before
blasting, and V is the acoustic velocity of the gypsum specimen after
blasting. Before the PSB test, V0 is measured by an ultrasonic tester. After
the completion of the blasting test, V is also gauged by the instrument.
The layout of the monitoring points is shown in Fig. 10. The distances
between the No.1–3 monitoring points and the central axis of the
specimen are 20 mm, 50 mm and 80 mm.
The damage results calculated according to Eq. (7) are shown in
Fig. 11. The uniaxial pressure has a significant influence on the damage
degree of the specimens. (1) When the direction of the blasthole layout is
parallel to the direction of the uniaxial pressure, a noticeable decrease in
the damage occurs as the uniaxial pressure increases at the same
monitoring point. At the same time, when the uniaxial pressure is the
(7) same, the damage value D gradually decreases with increasing the dis­
tance from the central axis. With the increase in the uniaxial pressure,
the curve slope tends to gradually flatten. (2) When the direction of the
blasthole layout is perpendicular to the direction of the uniaxial pres­
sure, a significant increase in the quantity of vertical cracks on the
surface of the specimen with the increase in uniaxial pressure is
observed. In other words, a noticeable increase in the amount of damage
occurs with the increase in uniaxial pressure.

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L. Yang et al. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 138 (2021) 104587

Fig. 9. P4 and P5 strain variation curves.

Fig. 11. Damage data map of different monitoring points after blasting.

damage distribution characteristics of the surrounding rock. The main

conclusions are as follows.

Fig. 10. Layout of the monitoring points.
4. Conclusions
This paper mainly discusses the influence of in situ stress on PSB and
analyzes the characteristics of crack formation, strain development and
(1) Through the analysis of the shape of the pre-crack after pre-
splitting blasting, it can be concluded that when the blasthole
layout direction is parallel to the uniaxial pressure direction, the
uniaxial pressure promotes the formation of the pre-crack, and
the pre-crack is more regular; when the blasthole layout direction
is perpendicular to the uniaxial pressure direction, the uniaxial

8
L. Yang et al.
pressure suppresses the formation of pre-cracks. At the same
time, with the increase in uniaxial pressure, the degree of surface
failure of the specimens and quantity of vertical cracks increase.
(2) Based on the analysis of the strain of the monitoring points, it is
found that the peak strain shows nonlinear attenuation with
increasing distance between the monitoring points and the
blasthole; The uniaxial pressure has a significant effect on the
deformation of the specimens around pre-cracks.
(3) Through the analysis of the acoustic test data of the monitoring
points, it is found that the uniaxial pressure significantly affects
the damage degree of specimen. When the direction of blasthole
layout is parallel to the direction of uniaxial pressure, the damage
of gypsum specimen around pre-crack decreases with the in­
crease of uniaxial pressure. When the direction of blasthole
layout is perpendicular to the direction of uniaxial pressure, the
trend is the opposite.
(4) When the blasthole layout direction is parallel to the uniaxial
pressure direction, it is easy to form cracks. This conclusion can
provide a reference for the design of deep excavation blasting.
When PSB is adopted, the direction of the blasthole arrangement
is parallel to the direction of the maximum ground stress as far as
possible, which is beneficial to the formation of pre-cracks.
However, considering that the response of blasting vibration is
affected by many factors, such as lithology, geological topog­
raphy, and charge structure, there may be a certain deviation
between the actual situation and the conclusion. Therefore, many
blasting tests should be carried out as much as possible. A more
accurate prediction of crack formation by PSB is obtained.
Data availability
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from
the corresponding author upon request.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foun­
dation of China (Grant No. 51974316) and the National Key Research
and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFC0600903).
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