Since blasting always carries a great risk of accidents, it is of vital importance to ensure the maximum initiation reliability, precision and safety of blasting devices.
The present initiation systems include an electric initiation system and an electronic initiation system using electric wires as a blasting device, and a detonating cord system and a non-electric “Nonel” initiation system without using wires.
The detonating cord system and the non-electric “Nonel” system account for more than 80-90% of the currently used blasting devices. The detonating cord system is still widely used in open-cut bench blasting and underground mining blasting due to its high detonation reliability by the bidirectional initiation of the circuit despite its high-cost and emission of a large quantity of blasting gas.
In the meanwhile, the “Nonel” initiation system has the advantage of low cost, but its reliability is lower than the bidirectional initiation system because the circuits are connected in a unidirectional (indirect) initiation mode. Therefore, there is a continuous research to increase the initiation reliability of these unidirectional connectors.
Ryu In Mu, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has completed an initiation system available for all blasting operations including mine blasting by adding the components of the non-electric "pulkkot" initiation system, a direct-initiation bidirectional blasting device, and by improving its characteristics.
This initiating system provides tensile strength of more than 1N ensuring 100% initiation of shock tubes in the connector and it is safe in blasting, and storage and handling of system elements because the connector has no detonators.
The non-electric "pulkkot" initiation system was fully introduced into all blasting operations including open and underground mine blasting, thus reducing the cost of fragmentation significantly by increasing the explosive energy more than twice without explosion and blasting gas exhaust with a reliability of 99.99% without misfire.
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