New Model of Burden Thickness Estimation for Blasting of Open Pit Mines

Suitable pattern design of drilling and blasting is very important in open pit mines. Using of explosive energy for rock fragmentation with minimum cost of production is one of the blasting purposes in open pit mines. The most important parameters of blasting are including diameter of hole, specific charge, burden thickness and suitable dimensions of rock fragmentation. In this paper, specific charge is calculated based on quality of rock mass and then based on definition of specific charge, maximum and minimum thickness of burden in open pit mines is calculated. In this paper, a new models of burden estimation based on quadratic equations is presented. Therefore, based on this new equations, other parameters of blasting are corrected. Also, the validation results of the new equations in this article show the new burden thicknesses have slightly differences with the experimental results. The maximum error of calculated burden is equal 3% based on obtained data. Therefore, the output results of these new equations can be reliable and accurate for calculations of the burden thickness.