Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 68 (2017) 167–173

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

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Numerical modelling for blast-induced fragmentation in sublevel caving MARK

mines
⁎
Changping Yia, , Jonny Sjöbergb, Daniel Johanssona
a
Division of Mining and Geotechnical Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, 97187 Luleå, Sweden
b
Itasca Consultants AB, 97775 Luleå, Sweden

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The flow behavior of the ore and waste significantly affect the dilution in sublevel caving (SLC) mines. Drill and
Blast-induced fragmentation blast issues are identified as having a substantial impact upon SLC material flow. In the paper, blast-induced
Sublevel caving fragmentation in SLC was numerically investigated using the LS-DYNA code. A method was presented to eval-
Numerical modelling uate fragmentation based on the damage description and a fragment identification routine implemented in the
LS-PREPOST (a pre- and post-processing tool of LS-DYNA). The effects of the delay time and the primer position
on fragmentation were investigated. The results indicated that a long delay time gives a finer fragmentation for
the cases discussed in the paper. The results also showed that the middle primer and the top primer in SLC can
give a fine fragmentation. The limitations of numerical modelling were also discussed.

1. Introduction fragmentation in modelling. Increasing the specific charge improves the

Sublevel caving (SLC) is a mass mining method based upon the
utilization of gravity flow of blasted ore and caved waste rock (Kvapil,
1998). The method functions on the principle that ore is fragmented by
blasting, while the overlying host rock fractures and caves under the
action of mine induced stresses and gravity (Bull and Page, 2000). The
caved waste from the overlying rock mass fills the void created by ore
extraction. SLC is popular in the worldwide because of its advantages
over other mining methods (Trinh and Jonsson, 2013; Wang et al.,
2012; Hustrulid and Kvapil, 2008) The major disadvantage of the SLC
mining method is the relatively high dilution of the ore by caved waste
(Just, 1981; Kvapil, 1992). A major factor influencing this dilution is
the flow behavior of the ore and waste material. Blasting in SLC has
been identified as having a significant impact upon material flow
characteristics and therefore on the overall performance of the SLC
method.
Rustan (2012) conducted a small-scale SLC test to study the influ-
ence of blasthole deviation on fragmentation in 1965. During
1968–1970, he conducted a series of small-scale SLC tests and in-
vestigated the influence of several factors on fragmentation such as
delay time, artificial joints, binding material, specific charge and waste
rock pressure on fragmentation. His results showed that the optimal
delay time between parallel holes could be determined from the test in
slab blasting models. It is necessary to introduce artificial weakness
planes by using crushed microscopic glass to achieve a scaled
fragmentation, but with the larger specific charge the backbreak was
too large and could therefore not be used. A larger waste rock pressure
causes larger fragments when blasting against the waste rock.
Zhang (2004) reported results from model blasting tests in scaled
SLC-models scaled 1:50 in concrete. His results indicated that the
fragment size distribution within the body is increasing from bottom to
top, and on the top of the caved (should be blasted burden) ore body
and close to the blastholes there is a subsided area. He also reported a
horizontal swelling of the ore in the upper part as large as 2.8 times the
burden so the swelled burden would near the shape of the draw body.
A full scale marker trial was conducted at the Ridgeway SLC op-
eration (Power, 2004; Brunton, 2009) to assess the impact of drill and
blast parameters on material recovery. The marker trials aimed at
quantifying and assessing the geometry of the extraction zone (the
shape that defines the original location of the extracted material at
primary excavation), development of the extraction zone over time,
variability of flow behavior, and factors affecting flow behavior (Power,
2004). Ultimately, the trials aimed at improving ore recovery and re-
ducing ore dilution at the Ridgeway mine.
Brunton and Chitombo (2010) numerically investigated the impact
of sublevel caving blast design and performance on material recovery at
the Ridgeway SLC operation using the Hybrid Stress Blast Model
(HSBM). Their results indicated that significant rock mass damage oc-
curred in the vicinity of the blast holes detonated on the first delay. This
resulted in significant damage to holes detonated on the second delay

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: changping.yi@ltu.se (C. Yi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2017.05.030
Received 19 December 2016; Received in revised form 15 May 2017; Accepted 31 May 2017
Available online 03 June 2017
0886-7798/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Yi et al. Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 68 (2017) 167–173

Fig. 1. (a) Geometry of the SLC model and (b) the charge pattern and the initiation se-
quence.

Fig. 2. (a) The borehole pattern in the model and (b) the borehole pattern of the
and rock mass dislocation and damage in front of these holes.
Malmberget mine.
Despite blasting is important for the flow behavior of the ore and
waste material, it is not well understood how the blasting design and
w ⎞ −R1 V w ⎞ −R2 V wE
parameters influence the fragmentation in SLC and therefore ore re- p = A ⎛1−⎜ e ⎟ + B ⎛1− ⎜e + ⎟

covery and dilution. In the paper, blast-induced fragmentation in SLC is ⎝ R1 V ⎠ ⎝ R2 V ⎠ V (1)

numerically investigated by using LS-DYNA code (Hallquist, 2013). A
method is presented to evaluate fragmentation based on the finite
element modelling.
2. Models and material parameters
In the present paper, the blasting design of the LKAB Malmberget
mine was taken as a reference for numerical simulation. The LKAB
Malmberget mine is a large scale underground iron mine that produces
approximately 15 million tonnes of crude ore annually. Currently, all
mining is done using sublevel caving. The sublevel heights vary be-
tween 25 and 30 m (in different portions of the mine) and the blast
holes are 115 mm in diameter. The geometry of SLC model is shown in
Fig. 1(a). The borehole patterns in the numerical model and the Mal-
mberget mine are shown in Fig. 2. In production blasting a plastic plug
with thickness of 2–3 mm is placed under the lowest (Yi, 2013) charged
position of a bore hole in the mine. The plug is thin and can only hold
the explosive in the blast hole during charging. It cannot work as an
effective stemming that can to some extent prevent the detonation
energy from escaping into the drift (Zhang, 2005). Hence, in the nu-
merical model, the segment of a borehole between the collar of the
borehole and the lower end of the explosive is empty, see Fig. 1(b). To
avoid a too large specific charge at the region which is close to the drift
roof, the boreholes have different long empty segments, see Fig. 1(b).
The sequence numbers in Fig. 1(b) denote the initiation sequence. The
model comprises approximately 21 million elements generated by
Truegrid code with all elements being hexahedral. An MPP version LS-
DYNA solver was employed to run the simulation in a cluster with 24
Cores and 192 GB memory.
The explosive used in the LKAB Malmberget mine is an emulsion
explosive of E682. The primers are placed at the middle of the blast
holes and the distance between the primers and the collar of the
borehole is 15 m.
The explosive was modeled with an explosive material model in LS-
DYNA and with the Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) equation of state (Lee
et al., 1968) as Eq. (1).
where p is the pressure; A, B, R1, R2 and w are constants. V and E are the
relative volume and the internal energy respectively.
The parameters of E682 explosive were calibrated by Hansson
(2009) and listed in Table 1. In Table 1, ρ is the density of the explosive
used, D is the velocity of detonation of the explosive, PCJ is the
Chapman-Jouguet pressure of the explosive.
The rock was modeled with the Riedel-Hiermaier-Thoma (RHT)
material model, which is an advanced damage plasticity model for
brittle materials such as concrete and rock. It was proposed by Riedel
et al. (1999) for dynamic loading of concrete and implemented in LS-
DYNA code in 2011 (Borrvall and Riedel, 2011). The material model
involves three limit surfaces which describe the strength of the mate-
rial, see Fig. 3. The first surface is the yield surface which is limited by a
cap surface. Beyond this surface the material starts to deform plastically
with a linear hardening description. When the material reaches the
failure surface, the damage of the material starts to evolve until the
damage is equal to one. When the residual surface is reached, the
material is considered to be fully damaged and the strength is de-
termined by a residual surface. This model has been used to model
blast-induced damage and fragmentation (Xie et al., 2017; Johnson,
2014).
Δε p
In this model, the damage level is defined using D = ∑ f where
ε
Δε p is the accumulated plastic strain and ε f is the failure strain. D = 1
means fully damaged while D = 0 means undamaged. The rock mate-
rial used is Westerly granite. Schill (2012) calibrated the parameters of
Westerly granite for the RHT model based on the experimental results
(Haimson and Chang, 2000) and the calibrated parameters are re-
produced in Table 2.
Table 1
Parameters of E682 explosive.
ρ (kg/m3) D (m/s) PCJ (GPa) A (GPa) B (GPa) R1 R2 w E (GPa)
1180 5122 9.53 276.2 8.44 5.2 2.1 0.5 3.87

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Fig. 3. Stress limit surfaces and loading scenario in the RHT model (after
Borrvall and Riedel (2011)).

3. Fragmentation evaluation method value in the range 0–1, if x is less than Xmax. Xmax is the maximum
fragment size and X50 is the median fragment size. a, b and c are con-
The fragmentation is one of the important indicators to evaluate the stants.
blast performance. In order to evaluate the fragmentation it is necessary The numerical results for fragment area distribution and the fitting
to be able to distinguish between cracked rock and undamaged rock. It curve with Swebrec function are shown in Fig. 5. By using this method,
is not possible to explicitly model the crack formation and propagation it is possible to study the accumulated area for different fragment areas.
in the type of finite element model used here. In this paper, an alter- The accumulated area plot should resemble the mass passing plot
native approach was used to evaluate the fragmentation. The block (“sieve curves”) which is commonly used in fragmentation analysis.
shown in Fig. 4(a) is chosen as an evaluation object. After the calcu-
lation, the damage distribution in this block is shown in Fig. 4(b). In
4. Discussion
this study, a damage level of 0.6 was taken as the limit where the rock is
considered to be fully crushed. Then the elements with damage level
4.1. Effect of delay time on fragmentation
above 0.6 were blanked out to form cracks in the rock mass. The crack
pattern is shown in Fig. 4(c). It is not easy to identify the fragments in
In practice, the initiation sequence of boreholes in sublevel caving
3D, but it is straightforward in 2D. A cross-section shown in Fig. 4(a) is
mines is one by one and the delay time is 25 ms usually (Zhang, 2005).
chosen to be evaluated about the fragment area in this cross-section.
But for finite element modelling of blasting, elements get very distorted
The crack pattern of this cross-section is shown in Fig. 4(d). Next, an
due to particle movement if the simulation time is long, which even-
algorithm was developed and a routine was implemented in LS-PRE-
tually can stop the simulation. In the present paper, three cases for
POST, in which fragments delineated by cracks (=fully crushed ele-
delay times of 0 ms, 1 ms and 2 ms were modeled. The purpose is to
ments) were identified, and the area of each such fragment was de-
study the effect of delay time on fragmentation. The simulation time
termined. Then it is possible to evaluate the fragment area by
was 20 ms for the cases with simultaneous initiation and 1 ms delay
measuring the fragments in a number of cuts through the model.
time. The case with 2 ms delay time had a simulation time of 25 ms. In
After the fragment area was calculated, some area sizes which re-
order to evaluate the blast performance in each case, one block and one
semble the sieve mesh sizes were defined to obtain size intervals for
cross-section of this block were selected for evaluation, see Fig. 4(a).
different fragment areas. Then the extended Swebrec function
The damage distribution of the case of 1 ms delay after blasting is
(Ouchterlony, 2009) was employed to fit the fragment area distribu-
shown in Fig. 6. The crack pattern of this case is shown in Fig. 7. The
tion. The function is
back view in Figs. 6 and 7 is the view of the cross-section where the
P (x ) = 1/{1 + a [ln(x max / x )/ln(x max / x50 )]b boreholes are located at.
The fragmentation of the chosen cross-section for different delay
+ (1−a)[(x max /x −1)/(x max /x50−1)]c } (2)
times is shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 8 indicates that the fragments in the lower
where P(x) is a cumulative distribution function and may take any part of the ring are fine. One possible reason is that the specific charge

Table 2
RHT model parameters for Westerly Granite.

Parameter Value Parameter Value

Density 2627 kg/m3 Reference compressive strain rate E0C 3.0E8

Shear Modulus 18.6 GPa Reference tensile strain rate E0T 3.0E9
Eroding plastic strain 2.0 Break compressive strain rate EC 3.0E22
Parameter for polynomial EOS B0 1.22 Break tensile strain rate ET 3.0E22
Parameter for polynomial EOS B1 1.22 Compressive strain rate dependence exponent 0.032
Parameter for polynomial EOS T1 40 GPa Tensile strain rate dependence exponent 0.036
Parameter for polynomial EOS T2 0 Pressure influence on plastic flow in tension 0.001
Hugoniot polynomial coefficient A1 40 GPa Compressive yield surface parameter GC* 1.0
Hugoniot polynomial coefficient A2 0 Tensile yield surface parameter GT* 0.7
Hugoniot polynomial coefficient A3 0 Shear modulus reduction factor 0.5
Failure surface parameter A 2.618 Damage parameter D1 0.04
Failure surface parameter N 0. 7985 Damage parameter D2 1.0
Compressive strength 200 MPa Minimum damaged residual strain 0.01
Relative shear strength 0.18 Residual surface parameter AF 0.873
Relative tensile strength 0.05 Residual surface parameter AN 0.559
Lode angle dependence factor Q0 0.567 Grunnisen Gamma 0
Lode angle dependence factor B 0.0105 Crush pressure 133 MPa
Compaction pressure 6 GPa Porosity exponent 3
Initial porosity 1.0

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Fig. 4. (a) The evaluated block and a selected cross-section; (b) Damage distribution after blasting; (c) Crack pattern after blasting; (d) Fragments at the chosen cross-section.

at this region is large. Another possible reason is that the blast-induced

compressional stress waves in the rock mass reflect at the roof of the
drift and therefor induces tensile stresses in this region. It can be ob-
served from Fig. 8 that the coarse fragments are in the middle of the
ring. It could be because the fan pattern of the bore holes causes a small
specific charge at this area. The fragments around the upper boundaries
of the ring are fine. It could be induced by the reflected tensile waves
because the upper boundaries of the ring are set as free boundaries for
numerical simulations. In practice, the upper boundaries of the ring are
overlaid by waste. The boundary conditions should lie between the free
boundaries and the non-reflected boundaries. Fig. 8 also indicates that
the 2 ms delay leads to a finest fragmentation in three cases.
The effect of delay times on fragmentation is shown in the accu-
mulated area plot, see Fig. 9. Fig. 9 indicates, at the chosen cross sec-
Fig. 5. Accumulated area plot.
tion, the simultaneous initiation gives the coarsest fragmentation while

Fig. 6. Overall damage distribution for the 1 ms delay time case.

(a) Front view (b) Back view

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(a) Front view (b) Back view
Fig. 7. Overall crack pattern for the 1 ms delay time case.
the case of 2 ms delay leads to the finest fragmentation.
4.2. Effect of primer positions on fragmentation
Previous research has shown that the blast performance is influ-
enced by the position of the primer. Generally, for bench blasting,
bottom priming gives the maximum use of explosive energy, increasing
fragmentation and displacement of the rock with a minimum of fly rock
(Jimeno et al., 1995). Some researchers stated that borehole toe
priming also gives the maximum use of explosive energy and increasing
fragmentation for SLC blasting (Xue et al., 2001; Wang, 2003). The
advantages and disadvantages of lowest primer position were in-
vestigated by Zhang (2005) in the Malmberget mine, Sweden. Nowa-
days, the primers are placed at the middle of the borehole, at 15 m
distance from the borehole collar. The results from production show
that the fragmentation is much better than before and the average ore
extraction is increased by 107%, compared with that from the lowest
primer position scheme in the same drifts (Zhang, 2005).
The cases of middle primer have been investigated in the above
subsection. In order to investigate the influence of the primer position
on the blast performance in SLC, two more cases were studied in this
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 68 (2017) 167–173
Fig. 9. Accumulated area plot for different delay times.
subsection. They are the top primer case and the bottom primer case.
Here the top primer means that the primer is located at the borehole toe
while the bottom primer means that the primer is located at the lowest
of the charge. The delay time was set as 1 ms.
The fragmentation of the chosen cross-section for different cases are
shown in Fig. 10. Fig. 10 shows that there are some boulders which are
close to the roof of drift and at the middle of the ring for the bottom
primer case. Fig. 10 also indicates that the cases of middle primer and
top primer can give a fine fragmentation compared to the case of
bottom primer. The fragment area distribution shown in Fig. 11 also
confirm this conclusion. Fig. 11 also indicates that the top priming and
the middle priming have the similar fragment area distribution at the
chosen cross-section. Fig. 10 indicates the fragmentation nearby the
upper boundary is fine for the cases of bottom primer and middle
primer compared to the top primer case. It could be because the stress
wave propagates upward in the first two cases and reflects at the upper
boundary while the stress wave propagates downward in the top primer
case. It can be observed that the fragmentation of the region which is
close to the drift roof for the top primer case is finer than that of the
cases of bottom primer and middle primer.
4.3. Limitations of the numerical modelling
Blasting induces large deformation until failure in the medium.
Currently the RHT material model in LS-DYNA only support Lagrangian
algorithm. The elements based on Lagrangian algorithm will be dis-
torted because of large deformation, which can stop the modelling
early. The delay times in the modelling cases are short to finish the
modelling before the elements are distorted. It is possible to run some
long delay time cases if the RHT material model in LS-DYNA supports
Fig. 8. Fragmentation of the chosen cross-section for different
delay times (a) 0 ms delay; (b) 1 ms delay; (c) 2 ms delay.
C. Yi et al.
Fig. 11. Accumulated area plot for different primer positions.
Eulerian algorithm or Arbitrary-Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) algorithm in
the future.
As mentioned earlier, It is not possible to explicitly model the blast-
induced fragmentation in the type of finite element model because it is
a continuum-based modelling. An alternative approach was proposed in
this paper to make an attempt to form cracks in rock mass based on
damage description and then analyze the fragmentation in 2D by using
a routine implemented in LS-PREPOST code. The drawback of the
method is that it is mesh size dependent and it is not possible to de-
termine fragments less than the element size due to the limited level of
discretization.
From the fragment size distribution figures such as Fig. 11, it can be
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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 68 (2017) 167–173
Fig. 10. Fragmentation of the chosen cross-section for different
primer positions (a) Bottom primer; (b) Middle primer; (c) Top
primer.
seen that the maximum fragment area is around 80 m2. It is too big for
realistic fragments resulted from blasting. It is because of the limitation
of the subroutine implemented in LS-PREPOST code. One of the main
issues when doing the fragment size identification is how to handle
“bridge” elements which connect two adjacent fragments, see Fig. 12.
These “bridge” elements could close the gap between two adjacent
fragments and yield a fragment which is very large compared to the
individual fragments. In the fragment size identification routine, if an
element has two opposing sides that are not connected to an element,
this is considered to be a “bridge” element and is cancelled out, see Area
I in Fig. 12. The identification routine takes the fragments near Area I as
two fragments. However, if the elements connect two fragments like the
elements in Area II, see Fig. 12(a), the identification routine takes the
fragments near Area II as one large fragment, which is one of possible
reasons why the maximum fragment area is greater than 80 m2 some-
times.
5. Conclusion
In the present study, the simulations for blasting in SLC were carried
out based on finite element modelling. A method was presented to
evaluate blast-induced fragmentation. Numerical results indicate that
the long delay time gives a finer fragmentation for the cases studied in
the paper. It should be noted that only three short delay time cases were
investigated because of the limitation of numerical modelling. More
cases should be studied to optimize the delay time for SLC blasting. The
results also indicate that the bottom priming induces a coarse
Fig. 12. Fragment identification (a) Bridge elements and (b)
handling method of bridge elements.
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fragmentation. The fragment size identification routine needs im-
provement to identify fragments better.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Vinnova (The swedish governmental
agency for innovation systems) for funding support. LKAB, Boliden
Mineral AB and Luleå University of Technology are acknowledged for
supplementary funding. The authors would also like to thank Mikael
Schill at DYNAmore Nordic AB who also involved in this study.
Professor Emeritus Finn Ouchterlony, formerly at Luleå University of
Technology, is acknowledged for initiating this project.
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