Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Mining Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria

2 Department of Mining Engineering, Aksum University, Aksum, Tigray, Ethiopia

3 Department of Geosciences, Geo-technology and Materials Engineering for Resources, Graduate School of International Resource Sciences, Akita University, Akita, Japan

4 School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, China

5 Universidad Politécnica de Madrid – ETSI Minas y Energía, Ríos Rosas Madrid, Spain.

6 Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, Mineral Industry Development Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Rock blast production rate (BPR) is one of the most crucial factors in the evaluation of mine project's performance. In order to improve the production of a limestone mine, the blast design parameters and image analysis results are used in this work to evaluate the BPR. Additionally, the effect of rock strength on BPR is determined using the blast result collected. In order to model BPR prediction using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and multivariate prediction techniques, a total of 219 datasets with 8 blasting influential parameters from limestone mine blasting in India are collected. To obtain a high-accuracy model, a new training process called the permutation important-based Bayesian (PI-BANN) training approach is proposed in this work. The developed models are validated with new 20 blast rounds, and evaluated with two model performance indices. The validation result shows that the two model results agree well with the BPR practical records. Additionally, compared to the MVR model, the proposed PI-BANN model in this work provides a more accurate result. Based on the controllable parameters, the two models can be used to predict BPR in a variety of rock excavation techniques. The study result reveals that rock strength variation affects both the blast outcome (BPR) and the quantity of explosives used in each blast round.

Keywords

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