Design should be based on economics and blast performance, not an arbitrary range of weight of explosive per volume of rock
by anthony konya and dr. calvin j. konya
When explosives were first used in 1627, blasters and engineers began looking at methods to better design blasts for their specific environment. At this time, there was little understanding about the various effects of explosives, and a majority of the blasting conducted at this time was the duplication of patterns that were working in other mines with minor modifications, which were supplied throughout the underground mines of Hungary by the ministerial councilor and the engineer who developed the blasting, Caspar Weindl. Eventually the Hungarians began implementing new means to control the blast, such as drilling machines in 1683 to drill deeper and faster, stemming in 1685 to confine the gas pressure to advance farther per blast, and paper cartridges to package the black powder in 1689.
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