- Brennan Lang - Date added: - Thursday, 27 August 2009 - Last
revised: Explosive cast blasting has seen widespread use in
recent years. It is as much a method of pit design and equipment
utilization as it is a method of blasting. Cast blasting is a
type of blast design which utilizes the surplus explosive energy
to move overburden material across the pit. It is most
frequently employed in coal mines to remove overburden from
above the coal seam. This is achieved by arranging pits in long
and narrow configurations that facilitate the movement of the
blasted rock into the previously mined pit. This technique
allows approximately 25% to 50% of the rock to be moved without
the use of mine equipment. Cast blasting can be employed with a
a dozer push operation that follows the casting operation. The
combination of these two techniques can typically remove 60% to
80% of the overburden that originally existed over the coal
seam. Although cast blasting requires more kilograms of
explosive for each cubic metre of rock