Effect of Compressive Strength on Blasted Rock Fragmentation in an Aggregate Quarry

This paper aims to study the effect of the strength of the rock mass and blast design parameters on the degree of blast fragmentation in the aggregate quarry Djebel Bouzegza C01 in Boumerdes, Algeria. Before the blast operation, it was conducted to obtain the strength value through the uniaxial compression strength (UCS) test of three blocks of bench blasting. After the blast, photographs of the muck piles fragments were taken to evaluate the fragment size using the image processing software Split-Desktop and compared them with the Kuz-Ram model results. Therefore, the mean fragment size X50 obtained by the Kuz-Ram model and Split-Desktop were linked to their respective UCS value, and the coefficient R50 was calculated as an error between the two methods. For improving the blasting, it was carried out by adjusting the design blast (burden and spacing) and the specific charge of the explosive using the empirical model of prediction Kuz-Ram. It is found that the strength of in-situ rock and the geometrical variables of design affect the distribution size fragmentation in a blast.