New methodology to prevent blasting damages for shallow tunnel

From all of the environmental problems, blast-induced vibrations often cause concern to surrounding residents. It is often claimed that damage to building superstructures is due to blasting, and sometimes the building owner files a lawsuit against the company that perform blasting operations. The blast-vibration problem has been thoroughly investigated in the past and continues to be the subject of ongoing research. In this study, a tunnel construction has been performed by a construction company, according to their contract they must have used drilling & blasting method for excavation in tunnel inlet and outlet portal. The population is very condensed with almost tunnel below in the vicinity houses of one or two floors, typically built with stone masonry and concrete. This situation forces the company to take extreme precautions when they are designing blasts so that the blast effects, which are mainly vibration and aerial waves, do not disturb their surrounding neighbors. For this purpose, the vibration measurement and analysis have been carried out and a new methodology in minimizing the blast induced ground vibrations at the target location, was also applied. Peak particle velocity and dominant frequencies were taken into consideration in analyzing the blast-induced ground vibration. The methodology aims to employ the most suitable time delays among blast-hole groupings to render destructive interference of surface waves at the target location.