Estimation of Vibration Parameter for Blast Based on Shear Strength

Abstract

The topic of blast loads on structures has received considerable attention of researchers and various site specific empirical models for blast induced vibration parameters such as Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) already exist. However, these empirical models do not consider the variation in soil property namely shear strength. In this paper, a total of 166 blast data from various soil sites have been collected and used to propose a generalized empirical model to estimate PPV in terms of shear strength. The presented empirical model has been compared with the models of other researchers. It has been found that the presented model, having maximum coefficient of correlation and minimum standard error, can be directly used in calculation of PPV. In the absence of field blast vibration data, the present model will be very useful to evaluate blast vibration parameter by using only basic soil property specified in terms of shear strength. The present model has also been validated for various degrees of saturation of soil. It is concluded that the present model predicts slightly higher values (i.e. critical values for design purposes) for partially saturated alluvium and sand, and predicts fairly for partly saturated tuff, wet tuff, saturated alluvial and loess.