Drilling and blasting have numerous applications in the civil and mining engineering. Due to the two major components of rock masses, namely the intact rock matrix and the discontinuities, their behavior is a complicated process to be analyzed. The purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of the geomechanical and geometrical parameters of rock and discontinuities on the rock mass blas...

In order to increase the productivity and economics of an existing (or baseline) vacuum blasting technology, which has been used to remove radioactive contamination, PCBs, and leadbased paint at Department of Energy (DOE) sites, the redevelopment and design of certain components has been initiated. These new components include a new rectangular blast nozzle, a blasthead with a wind curtain and ...

The near net shaped manufacturing ability of squeeze casting process requiresto set the process variable combinations at their optimal levels to obtain both aesthetic appearance and internal soundness of the cast parts. The aesthetic and internal soundness of cast parts deal with surface roughness and tensile strength those can readily put the part in service without the requirement of costly s...

In the field of hardware and software verification, many applications require to determine satisfiability of first-order-logic with respect to one or more background theories, also referred to as Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT). The majority of these applications relies on bit-precise reasoning as provided by SMT solvers for the quantifier-free theory of fixed-size bit-vectors, often combi...

This study evaluated the effect of microrobotized blasting of titanium endosteal implants relative to their manually blasted counterparts. Two different implant systems were utilized presenting two different implant surfaces. Control surfaces (Manual) were fabricated by manually grit blasting the implant surfaces while experimental surfaces (Microblasted) were fabricated through a microrobotize...

Exposure to respirable crystalline silica is a hazard common to many industries in Alberta but particularly so in abrasive blasting. Alberta occupational health and safety legislation requires the consideration of silica substitutes when conducting abrasive blasting, where reasonably practicable. In this study, exposure to crystalline silica during abrasive blasting was evaluated when both sili...

Blasting is essential for breaking hard rock in opencast mines and tunneling projects. It creates an adverse impact on flyrock. Thus, it to forecast flyrock minimize the environmental effects. The objective of this study forecast/estimate amount produced during blasting by applying three creative composite intelligent models: equilibrium optimizer-coupled extreme learning machine (EO-ELM), part...

Blasting is common in the coal industry to remove rock overburden so that the exposed coal can be mechanically excavated. The ground vibrations and air blast produced by blasting are often felt by residents surrounding the mines. There has been a trend for regulatory authorities, especially those concerned with the environment, to impose low limits on blast vibration levels in response to commu...

(1) Background: The assessment of airborne particulate matter (PM) and ultrafine particles (UFPs) in battlefield scenarios is a topic of particular concern; (2) Methods: Size distribution, concentration, and chemical composition of UFPs during operative military training activities (target drone launches, ammunition blasting, and inert bomb impact) were investigated using an electric low-pressu...