Abstract
Blasting operations are arguably one of the most contentious areas of surface mining. Public relations are easily soured at the mere hint of proposed plans, increased numbers of nuisance complaints only lead to tighter restrictions and an ever-growing band of lawyers are always ready to advise today's litigious society. Such opposition can easily render mineral extraction untenable. Many operators carry out routine monitoring as required by mineral planning authorities. However, in so doing, they only concentrate on the observed maximum peak particle velocity (PPV) being below the statutory limit and pay little, or no, attention to the measurable parameters that determine this value (e.g. scaled distance, burden, detonator type, blast type or rock type). Such practice is ‘monitoring to comply’. What is needed is for the operators to adopt a methodology that clearly demonstrates that the operator is ‘planning to comply’. The dedicated recording and analysis of blast vibration data are critically important parts of today's ‘best-practice’ methodology. This can only be achieved by constantly up-dating regression curves using compatible charge weights and vibration predictions determined from the most current data. This paper seeks to illustrate a number of the ‘pit-falls’ by highlighting the opposing philosophies of ‘planning for compliance’ and ‘monitoring for compliance’ and why the simple agglomeration of data can soon lead to an unworkable situation. It examines the concept of ‘likelihood’ as an approach to diagnose data-set parity and promotes likelihood ratio testing as an efficient method to improve predictive capacity. The aim throughout being to promote strategies and methods that are accountable, quantifiable, confer high levels of openness and improve efficiencies whilst seeking to minimise environmental impact.
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