Predicting of blasting vibrations in Sarcheshmeh copper mine by neural network

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have proven to be an effective tool for solving complex engineering problems requiring estimation, pattern recognition, and classification of variables. Ground vibration caused by blasting imposes damages and financial penalties and as such must be predicted accurately. In this study, the potentials of ANN are investigated in prediction of ground vibrations due to blasting in open pit mines. Real vibration data is recorded using PDAS 100 seismometers, and used as input data for ANN. Using back propagation algorithm and performance function, root mean square error (RMSE) the network, containing four hidden layers and 23 data sets, was trained. Six sets of data were used to make sure that correct training had been carried out. This produced the coefficient correlation of 0.99355. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.