Vibration Control at Dudhichua Project of Coal India

The Situation
Dudhichua Project is a large surface mine belonging to Coal India which produces 10Mt coal and removes 35m bcm of overburden per year. The Dudhichua project uses a truck/ shovel & fleet for prestripping and draglines for uncovering coal. Heavy blasting is critical for dragline productivity.

As an example, the distance of the west dragline bench from the NCL HQ is around 5km. At this distance the maximum charge per delay was fixed at 6te ie two holes to be fired on one delay.

Mining Issues
A typical blast in dragline benches at Dudhichua involves 150-200te of explosives loaded into in 50-60 holes of 311mm diameter and 35-40m depth. The Dudhichua Project is about 5km from Singrauli township. Several complaints of blast induced ground vibration have been received from Singrauli township. The predominant frequencies of the ground vibration measured at Singrauli generated by blasting at Dudhichua were in the range of 5 to 14Hz. The natural frequency of the NCL Head Quarters building and Morwa House at Singrauli were found to be 4Hz and 6Hz respectively. These buildings were experiencing amplification of the PPV up to 3 to 4 times the ground PPV. The key requirement was to minimise the amplification by resonance.

The delay interval between holes in a row was fixed at 2530ms. This reduced the relative intensity of vibrations in the 4-25Hz frequency zone, thus minimising resonance.

Technical Solutions
IEL engineers measured vibrations and analysed the results with a view to controlling vibration within acceptable limits. In December 2002 thirteen blasts were monitored and 27 readings were obtained using three vibrographs in different parts of the Dudhichua project. Statistical analysis was done to determine the site constants for the vibration propagation equation. The safe limit for peak particle velocity (PPV) was fixed at 2.5mm/s based on DGMS criteria and human perception to minimise the complaints. The signature of ground vibration without delay was recorded. This was analysed using the Vibrex computer model to determine the delay interval, which will minimise vibrations in the resonante frequency zone for houses and buildings.

Acknowledgments
Indian Explosives Limited acknowledges valuable support and guidance provided by Dudhichua, in particularly Mr.GS Sinha-AGM, during the work reported here, and also the Singrauli team for their support & commitment.

Author: Tushar Gaurav February 2004

Results
The table below gives the recommended maximum charge per delay for blasting at the Dudhichua project.
Distance (m) Max charge/delay (Kg) 1000 235 2000 940 3000 4000 5000 6000 2115 3760 5875 8460