Developing a mathematical assessment model for blasting patterns management: Sungun copper mine

Blasting is one of the most important operations in the mining projects that has effective role in the whole operation physically and economically. Unsuitable blasting pattern may lead to unwanted events such as poor fragmentation, back break and fly rock. Multi attribute decision making (MADM) can be useful method for selecting the most appropriate blasting pattern among previously performed patterns. In this work, initially, from various already performed patterns, efficient and inefficient patterns are determined using data envelopment analysis (DEA). In the second step, after weighting impressive attributes using experts' opinion, elimination Et choice translating reality (ELECTRE) was used for ranking the efficient patterns and recognizing the most appropriate pattern in the Sungun Copper Mine, Iran. According to the obtained results, blasting pattern with the hole diameter of 15.24 cm, burden of 3 m, spacing of 4 m and stemming of 3.2 m has selected as the best pattern and has selected for future operation.