A Methodology for Risk Evaluation and Assessment due to Ground Vibration in the Mining Operations

During recent years، mining engineering is considered as one of the crucial fields of risk evaluation and assessment. Blasting is a common technique for rock excavation in mining projects. However، blasting has several undesirable effects on surrounding area. Ground vibration is one of the most important undesirable effects of blasting operation and may cause substantial damage to nearby structures as well as human beings. The Shur river dam is in the vicinity of Sar-cheshmeh copper mine، in Kerman province، Iran. The core of this dam is affected by ground vibrations resulting from blasting operations in this area and therefore، the risk evaluation in this dam is necessary. In this paper، based on the basic concepts of rock engineering systems (RES) approach، a new model for the risk evaluation of ground vibrations at the Shur river dam area is developed. The evaluation risk on the proposed model is based on interaction matrix، vulnerability index and effective parameters on the level of ground vibrations. For the risk evaluation of ground vibration in this area، a database comprising of 20 blast events were prepared and utilized. The obtained results showed that overall risk of ground vibrations for the studied blasting operations is at the medium level. The developed model in this study may be useful for a preliminary stage of blasting design.