Effects of Input Parameters in Numerical Modelling of Dynamic Ground Motion under Blasting Impact

Explosive blasting is a very useful tool for mining and civil engineering applications. It, however, may cause severe environmental hazards on adjacent structures due to blasting impact. Blast engineers try to make optimum blast design to provide efficient performance and to minimize the environmental impact as well. It requires a pre-assessment of the impacts resulting from the blasting operation in design stage. One of the common procedures is to evaluate the proposed blast pattern through a series of test blasting in the field. Another approach is to evaluate the possible environmental effects using the numerical methods. There are a number of input parameters to be prepared for the numerical analysis. Some of them are well understood, while some are not. This paper presents some results of sensitivity analysis of the basic input parameters in numerical modelling of blasting problems so as to provide sound understanding of the parameters and some guidelines for input preparation.