Artificial Neural Network as a Tool for Backbreak Prediction

Backbreak is one of the destructive side effects of the blasting operation. Reducing of this event is very important for economic of a mining project. Involvement of various parameters has made the backbreak analyzing difficult. Currently there is no any specific method to predict or control the phenomenon considering all the effective parameters. In this paper, artificial neural network (ANN) as a powerful tool for solving such complicated problems is used to predict backbreak in blasting operation of the Sangan iron mine, Iran. Network training was fulfilled using a collected database of the practiced operation including blast design details and rock condition. Trying various types of the networks, a network with two hidden layers was found to be optimum. Performance of the ANN model was compared with statistical analysis using datasets which were kept apart from the original database. According to the obtained results, for the ANN model there existed a higher correlation (R-2 = 0.868) and lesser error (RMSE = 0.495) between the predicted and measured backbreak as compared to the regression model. Also, sensitivity analysis revealed that the inputs rock factor and number of rows are the most and the least sensitive parameters on the output backbreak, respectively.