Tunnelling and

Underground Space
Technology
incorporating Trenchless
Technology Research
Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361
www.elsevier.com/locate/tust

Effects of blast induced vibrations on the fresh

concrete lining of a shaft
Changsuo Zhang a, Feng Hu b, Steve Zou c,*

a
Department of Mining Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, China
b
Department of Mining Engineering, Shandong Science and Technology University, China
c
Department of Mining Engineering, Dalhousie University, 1360 Barrington Street, Halifax, NS, Canada B3J 2X4

Received 18 June 2004; received in revised form 8 December 2004; accepted 16 January 2005
Available online 19 February 2005

Abstract

During shaft excavation, blast induced vibrations can cause micro-cracks in the fresh concrete lining and decrease its strength.
The traditional method to reduce the vibration effect is to control the scale of blasting and apply temporary support to protect the
fresh concrete. Recent research was conducted to study the effects of the blast induced vibration on the fresh concrete. Shaft sinking
operations (drilling, blasting and concrete lining) were simulated in a laboratory model. Additives of triethanolamine – TEA
(N(C2H4OH)3) and sodium chloride (NaCL) in varying proportions were added to the concrete lining to increase the early strength.
Vibration was generated by small scale blasting. The experimental results show that the blast induced vibration has negative and
positive effects on the strength of the fresh concrete depending on the curing time at blasting. Vibration can increase the strength
within the first 1–2 days. After that period, vibration can cause cracks in the fresh concrete and reduce the strength. Still later, it has
no more effect. The time windows vary with the magnitude of vibration and the strength of the concrete at the time of blasting. It
was also found that both additives increased the early strength of concrete lining and expanded the time windows. These results
indicate that proper timing of blasting and use of additives can change the negative effect of the blast induced vibration into a posi-
tive effect and increase the strength of a concrete lining.
Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Blast induced vibration; Concrete; Additive; Shaft sinking

1. Introduction cast concrete is subjected to the blast induced vibration.

Concrete is considered as one of the most important
supporting materials and is broadly used in tunneling,
mining and other construction industry for permanent
support. The quality of concrete is vital to the safety
of both workers and constructed structures. The con-
crete is expected to stand firm without failure until the
end of its intended life. In some cases, shaft sinking
for example, concrete lining takes place at very close
proximity to the drilling and blasting site, and the newly
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 902 494 3977; fax: +1 902 425 1037.
E-mail address: steve.zou@dal.ca (S. Zou).
This often results in damage to the new concrete. The
problem is more pronounced in excavating a deep shaft
in a water-bearing stratum, where the blast induced
vibration can damage the new concrete and cause water
inflow.
The Morocco Lajid shaft sinking (Hu, 1992) is a typ-
ical example. It used an effective shaft-sinking approach:
deep-hole smooth blasting and short concrete lining.
However, as other shaft sinking techniques, blasting
caused violent vibration, which created many micro-
cracks in the newly cast concrete lining. These cracks de-
creased the final strength of the shaft lining, reduced the
shaft integrity and increased water inflow. A series of

0886-7798/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tust.2005.01.001
 C. Zhang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361
blocking and grouting processes had to be used to rem-
edy the problem. This lowered the sinking rate and in-
creased the shaft cost.
In order to solve this type of problem, temporary
support is often used to protect the fresh concrete. This
helps to decrease the vibration of the concrete lining, but
impedes the work progress and increases cost.
There has been very limited research reported on the
behavior of a fresh concrete lining subject to blast in-
duced vibrations. Ansell (2004) analysed the distance
and the curing time needed for the fresh concrete to cure
prior to any vibration but did not look into the positive
effect of vibration. In concrete strength research,
mechanical vibration of fresh concrete is commonly
practiced as means to eliminate voids and increase
strength. Some researchers (MacInnis and Kosteniuk,
1976; Mattison, 1932) reported that concrete can be suc-
cessfully vibrated up to 4 h from the time of mixing and
the strength can be increased by up to 14%. If revibra-
tion takes place 5–6 h later, it can damage the concrete
and decrease its strength. That time window is often
too short to finish one round of excavation in the field.
Therefore the option to reduce the vibration problem in
tunneling, shaft-sinking and dam-building is to control
the vibration intensity by strictly limiting the peak par-
test
sample
lining
concrete
explosive
concrete
150cm 150cm
samples
lining
Fig. 1. Simulation shaft diagram.
357
ticle velocity of vibration (PPV). This limitation inevita-
bly results in slower progress, project delay, and thus
cost increase.
This research is aimed at the fresh concrete behavior
under the direct influence of blast induced vibration.
The objectives were to increase the concrete strength
by taking advantage of the positive effect of vibration
and also to increase the time window. The intensity of
vibration and use of additives to increase the early
strength were considered.
2. Experimental
2.1. Simulation of blast induced vibration on shaft lining
The simulation was conducted in the explosive labo-
ratory of Shandong Science and Technology University,
China. A simulation shaft (Fig. 1) was built of cast con-
crete. Except for the lining thickness, other dimensions
are scaled according to the field practice of Morocco La-
jid shaft sinking at a scale factor of 5. The actual diam-
eter of the shaft is 7.5 m, the height of the concrete lining
is 3 m, and the distance between the blasting horizon
and the bottom of the newly cast lining is 3 m. During
60cm
concrete
60cm
70cm
150cm
358 C. Zhang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361

the experiments, cubic concrete samples were fixed on
the top of the lining of the pre-cast simulation shaft to
test the effect of vibration. Explosives were fired at the
centre of the shaft bottom. The samples were kept for
compressive strength tests at a later stage.
The weight of explosive charge (Q) was estimated
according to the distance (R) between the blast site
and the testing point using the following formula (Nich-
olls et al., 1971):
pffiffiffiffi a (0.45) and the same ratio of cement to sand to aggregate
m ¼ kð Q=RÞ ;
where k and a are parameters which depend on the sur-
rounding material, empirical values of 72 and 1.8 being
used respectively, and m is the value of PPV. If m and R
are given, Q can then be calculated. Estimation of Q was
based on the anticipated PPV value of fresh concrete in
the field at the Lajid shaft-sinking site. There was no vis-
ible damage noticed on the concrete lining when PPV
was less than 400 mm/s. Bond failure or visible cracks
sometimes took place when PPV was more than
750 mm/s. Similar results were reported by Ansell
(2004) in an in situ test. Both vibration intensity levels
were considered during the simulation. The weight of
explosive charge in the simulation was calculated to be
750 and 1500 g corresponding to the PPV values of
400 and 750 mm/s, respectively. The measured vibra-
tions by velocity-meters, which were mounted in the
concrete samples, were 300 and 800 mm/s, respectively.
2.2. Concrete samples and strength development
Vibration tests were conducted on concrete samples
mounted on top of the lining of the simulation shaft.
The samples were made of 15 cm cube concrete. They
were exposed to the blasting vibration at various curing
times. Each time, three samples were used and each sam-
ple was only tested once. After the vibration tests, these
samples were kept at room temperature (25 °C) under
normal moisture conditions and tested for uniaxial com-
pressive strength (UCS) at 28 days.
All the concrete samples were cast with normal Port-
land cement (425#) at the same cement/water ratio
(1:2:2.5). A total of four sets of samples were made: I
with no additive, II with 0.05% TEA, III with 0.5%
NaCL and 0.05% TEA, IV with 0.5% sodium lignosulfo-
nate and sodium carbonate (NC). Some samples were
not subjected to vibration test and their strength was
used for comparison. Table 1 shows the UCS values of
the concrete samples at various curing times without
vibration effect. Sample Set IV was dropped after the
72 h test because it had similar effect as Sample Set II
(0.05% TEA) considering that TEA is fluid and easier
to mix evenly in the concrete. As shown in Figs. 2 and
3, all samples with additives had strength gain at all
ages. The gain for types II and IV are compatible. Type
III has the highest gain. However, the gain is more pro-
nounced at early ages and becomes less significant after
2 days.
3. Analysis of blast vibration test results
Vibration tests were conducted on individual samples
at various curing times. For all samples subjected to
blast vibration tests, the UCS was tested at 28 days

Table 1
The effect of different additives on the UCS at 1, 2 and 3 days curing time (MPa)
Curing time I No additive II 0.05%TEA III 0.5%NaCL + 0.05%TEA IV 0.5%NC
24 h 1 2.11 2.31 4.89 2.2
2 1.93 2.4 5.5 2.2
3 1.91 2.37 4.80 2.2
Average 1.98 2.36 5.06 2.2
Gain – 19.2% 156% 11.1%
48 h 1 6.47 8.1 14.5 8.4
2 5.85 8.5 15.8 7.9
3 6.89 8.4 14.4 8.0
Average 6.40 8.3 14.9 8.1
Gain – 29.7% 132.8% 26.6%
72 h 1 10.7 12.5 18.0 14.9
2 11.2 12.76 17.1 14.7
3 11.7 13.0 18.4 14.7
Average 11.2 12.88 17.8 14.8
Gain – 15.0% 58.9% 32.1%
28 days 1 22.3 24.6 22.4 –
2 23.5 24.2 24.5 –
3 21.8 23.0 23.7 –
Average 22.5 23.9 23.5 –
Gain – 6.2% 4.4% –
 C. Zhang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361 359

25 Vibration ( PPV 300mm/s)

27
No vibration
20 25 Vibration (PPV 800mm/s)

28-day UCS (MPa)

23
15
UCS (MPa)

21 Positive effect Negative effect

I No additive C
10 19 A B
II 0.05%TEA
III 0.5%NaCL+0.05%TEA 17
5 IV 0.5%NC Critical curing time Non-influence time
15
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
0 Curing Age (hour)
0 200 400 600 800
Curing Age (hour) Fig. 4. Relations between 28-days UCS and blast vibration without
additive.
Fig. 2. Effects of additives on UCS development.

the critical curing time, Window A, vibration (300 mm/

160 s) increased the strength, a positive effect. After the crit-
ical curing time, Window B, the vibration reduced the
140
strength, a negative effect. After the non-influence time,
120 Window C, the vibration is not expected to have any ef-
fect on the strength. The type of additive and the mag-
100 II 0.05%TEA nitude of vibration affect the critical and non-influence
Gain (%)

80 III 0.5%NaCL+0.05%TEA curing time. The strength changes are also closely re-
IV 0.5%NC lated to the vibration amplitude. When subjected to
60 vibration of 300 mm/s at a curing time of 24 h, the 28-
day UCS increased by 13.7%. However, when subjected
40
to vibration of 800 mm/s at same curing time, its 28-day
20 UCS decreased by 24%. Due to the complaints of the
surrounding residents on the blasting noise, only one
0
0 200 400 600 800 test without additives was done at the higher vibration
Curing Age (hour) level. Although the number of tests is limited at this le-
vel, it is known in general that before the concrete is ma-
Fig. 3. UCS gain in percentage. tured, larger vibration will more likely damage the
concrete structure and reduce its final strength. This
can be observed later from the results with additives.
curing time. Fig. 4 shows the results of Sample Set I with Thus according to the trend of the vibration at
no additive. As shown, blast vibration changed the value 300 mm/s, the critical curing time for vibration at
of the UCS at 28 days. There are three windows: Before 800 mm/s is expected to be shorter.

Table 2
28-day UCS (MPa) for samples subjected to vibration
Curing time at blasting: 8h 24 h 48 h
Vibration magnitude: 300 mm/s 800 mm/s 300 mm/s 800 mm/s 300 mm/s 800 mm/s
II mixing 0.05%TEA
1 27.6 29.1 26.6 24.4 24.1 20.9
2 27.6 27.6 25.4 23.2 23.3 23.3
3 30 29.8 26.4 22.8 24.4 22.7
Average 28.4 28.8 26.1 23.5 23.9 22.4
Gain (%) 20.9 22.6 11.1 0 1.7
4.7
III mixing 0.5%NaCL + 0.05%TEA
1 29.1 24.9 30.2 25.4 23.4 27.3
2 30.0 27.9 29.8 27.0 26.9 25.4
3 31.5 30.0 31.3 28.4 27.1 27.8
Average 30.2 27.5 30.4 27.0 25.8 26.8
Gain (%) 26.4 15.1 27.2 13.0 7.9 12.1
360 C. Zhang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361
1.4
Normalized 28-Day UCS Ratio
1.3
1.2
1.1
1 manent fractures, thus decreasing the final strength of
0.9
0.8
0 6 12 18 24 30
Curing Age (hour)
Fig. 5. Relations between normalized UCS and blast vibration with
additives.
For samples with additives, vibration tests were only
conducted at curing times of 8, 24 and 48 h. This is
partly due to the complaints of the surrounding resi-
dents to the blasting noise. This however gives sufficient
information to study the critical curing time and the po-
sitive effect of vibration. The experimental results are
shown in Table 2 and also presented in Fig. 5 as normal-
ized 28-day UCS ratio (i.e., each set of the strength data
in Table 2 are divided by the corresponding 28-day UCS
values without vibration). The results show that the
additives increased the ability of the newly cast concrete
to withstand blast induced vibration. Additives in Sam-
ple Set II (0.05%TEA) increased the 28 day strength at
vibration of 300 mm/s and increased Window A (posi-
tive effect) from 36 h (without additives, Fig. 4) to 48 h
(at UCS ratio 1.0, Fig. 5). With Sample Set III which
had two types of additives, the effect was more pro-
nounced and Window A was over 48 h at this vibration
level.
The vibration magnitude also had an effect on the
28 day strength and the critical curing time. For Sam-
ple Set II, 800 mm/s vibration reduced the critical cur-
ing time to about 23 h. This means that Window A
(positive effect) would be less than 23 h when no addi-
tives were added and that the result presented in Fig.
4 for 800 mm/s vibration was in Window B (negative
effect). However the effect of the 800 mm/s vibration
on the non-influence-curing time is not clear due to
limited data. Similar trend can be observed for Sample
Set III.
4. Discussion and conclusions
Concrete is a kind of mixture which includes aggre-
gate, sand and cement. Sand and aggregate form the
backbone of the concrete matrix. Cement and water re-
act to bind the matrix together. Cement needs time to
harden. Before that takes place, the cement grout can
move easily from one place to another and vibration
II TEA-300 can help to increase compaction of aggregates and even
II TEA-800 the distribution of cement grout. Thus it will increase the
ultimate strength of the concrete. With the increase of
III TEA+NaCl-300
III TEA+NaCl-800 the curing time, as the cement gradually hardens and
the basic structure is being formed, vibration may dam-
age the cement bond and the structure, by inducing per-
the concrete.
This research studied the vibration effects by exper-
iments using blast induced vibrations. It has clearly
36 42 48 demonstrated three windows: Before the critical curing
time (Window A), vibration played a positive role,
increasing the ultimate strength of the fresh concrete.
After the critical curing time but before the non-influ-
ence curing time (Window B), vibration played a neg-
ative role, reducing the ultimate strength. When the
non-influence curing time was past (Window C), the
concrete had essentially formed a solid structure, and
vibration had little effect on the ultimate strength.
(This may change if the vibration is excessively large).
Both the critical curing time and non-influence curing
time are expected to vary with the early strength of the
concrete and the magnitude of vibration. The critical
curing time from this study is 23 and 48 h (Sample
Set II with 0.05%TEA) for 800 and 300 mm/s vibra-
tions, respectively, much longer than the 5–6 h re-
ported by others using mechanical vibration
(MacInnis and Kosteniuk, 1976; Mattison, 1932). Lar-
ger vibration is expected to reduce the critical curing
time but its effect on the non-influence curing time
and the final strength requires further study.
This study also showed that the two additives
(TEA at 0.05% and NaCl at 0.5%) effectively in-
creased the early strength of the fresh concrete and
its ability to withstand blast induced vibration, thus
increasing its ultimate strength. The additives have in-
creased the critical curing time (i.e. expanded the po-
sitive effect time window). This feature is very useful
in field construction. During shaft sinking, it requires
a certain time to complete one round of excavation
(drilling, blasting and mucking) and concrete erection.
The expanded positive effect time window will give
more time to allow the next round of blasting to be
completed. It will help reduce or avoid blasting in-
duced damage and even increase the concrete strength,
thus changing the previous negative vibration effect
into a positive effect.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the whole staff of the
explosive laboratory at Shandong Science and Technol-
ogy University, China, especially Profs. Yumin Li and
Congmou lin, their help made this research possible.
Also, the authors deeply appreciate the time and effort
 C. Zhang et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 20 (2005) 356–361
put into the experimental part of this work by Prof. Qi
huang.
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