SYNTHESIS OF SINGLE-HOLE VIBRATION WAVEFORMS FROM A MINING BLAST

OF DISSERTATION SYNTHESIS OF SINGLE-HOLE VIBRATION WAVEFORMS FROM A MINING BLAST In mining engineering, blast-induced ground vibration has become one of the major concerns when production blasts are conducted, especially when the mining areas and the blast sites are near inhabited areas or infrastructure of interest. To comply with regulations, a vibration monitoring program should be developed for each mining operation. The vibration level, which is usually indicated by the peak particle velocity (PPV) of the vibration waveform, should fall below the maximum allowable values. Ideally, when blasting is near structures of interest (power towers, dams, houses, etc.), the vibration level (PPV) should be predicted prior to the actual production blasts. There are different techniques to predict the PPV, one in particular is the signature hole technique. This technique is based on signals and systems theory and uses a mathematical operation called convolution to assess the waveform of the production blast. This technique uses both the vibration waveform of an isolated hole and the timing function given by the timing used in the blast. The signature hole technique requires an isolated single-hole waveform to create a prediction. Sometimes this information is difficult to acquire, as it requires the synthesis of a single-hole vibration waveform from a production blast vibration signal. The topic of ground vibrations from mining blasts, and more specifically the synthesis of a single-hole vibration waveform, has been studied by researchers in past decades, but without any concrete success. This lack of success may be partially due to the complexity and difficulty of modelling and calculation. However, this inverse methodology can be very meaningful if successfully applied in blasting engineering. It provides a convenient and economical way to obtain the single-hole vibration waveform and make the prediction of a production blast waveform easier. This dissertation research involves the theories of deconvolution, linear superposition, and Fourier phases to recover single-hole vibration waveforms from a production waveform. Preliminary studies of deconvolution included spectral division deconvolution and Wiener filtering deconvolution. In addition to the adaptation of such methodologies to the blast vibrations problems, the effectiveness of the two deconvolution methods by the influence of delay interval and number of holes is also discussed. Additionally, a new statistical waveform synthesis method based on the theories of linear superposition, properties of Fourier phase, and group delays was developed. The validation of the proposed methodology was also conducted through several field blasting tests. Instead of synthesizing one normalized single-hole vibration waveform by deconvolution, the proposed statistical waveform synthesis methodology generates a different single-hole vibration waveform for each blast hole. This method is more effective and adaptable when synthesizing single-hole vibration waveforms. Recommendations for future work is also provided to improve the methodology and to study other inverse problems of blast vibrations.