Blast-induced rock damage in tunnels/drifts

Blasting is the predominant rock excavation technique in tunnel/drifts. During blasting, the uncontrolled shock wave movement caused damage to the surrounding rock strata. This results into additional support cost and time over run to complete the project. The available controlled blasting techniques are costly and time consuming and hence not popular. Thus, vibration based damage control technique has more applicability and popular world-wide. This book present the a strong review of the causes of rock damage and the role of its influencing parameters on the extent of rock damage. The mechanism of blast wave propagation and wave properties are also discussed. The controlled blasting techniques proposed by different researchers time to time is also reviewed in details. The newly developed mathametical model for controlling the rock damage based on propagation of blast wave is described which is validated using number of case studies. To predict the extent of rock damage, artificial neural network model is also developed, which may act as an expert system with large number of training data set.