Rock and rock mass properties prediction based on drilling parameters for underground drift blasting

Monitoring of key drilling parameters can yield important information about rock properties and development blast design. As part of the EU-research project "Blasting Control" a development drill jumbo was instrumented to monitor drilling speed, percussion frequency, speed of rotation, torque and thrust. In total 40 development rounds of 3 m length each were monitored at the underground research site "VEBSTER" in Austria and a bauxite mine in Greece. In addition to the measurement of the drilling parameters tests were done on rock cores taken from the area of the cut to relate the drilling data to point load strength, uniaxial compressive strength, modulus of elasticity and seismic velocity. The first part of the paper gives an overview of the data that were recorded during the tests, the second part discusses the data analysis procedures, the third part deals with the correlation of drilling parameters and rock properties. In the final section of the paper the limitations of on-line drilling parameter monitoring (MWD) for the determination of rock and rockmass properties are discussed.