Optimization of blasting parameters in opencast mine with the help of firefly algorithm and deep neural network

Blasting has been one of the most important contributors of mining since the start of mineral extraction and excavation. Along with fragmentation of the rocks, blasting also produces an excess of energy in the form of heat and vibration. Due to the spread of the vibration, the surrounding environment gets affected. Therefore, this paper aims to minimize the vibration to reduce the impact of ground vibration happening due to the mine blasting. In order to optimize the blasting parameters, a good predictor of such vibration is to be created. Hence, the paper compares a lot of predictors including empirical formulas and ANNs (Artificial Neural Networks). The best performing predictor has been used as the objective function for the optimization of parameters. Among the various optimization methods, the firefly algorithm proved to be a very good optimizer. Therefore, it was used to optimize the field parameters and implemented. The resulting optimized parameters showed a significant reduction in the ground vibration of 14.58%.