Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering covers the practical engineering aspects of many different kinds of rock blasting. It includes a thorough analysis of the cost of the entire process of tunneling by drilling and blasting in comparison with full-face boring. Also covered are the fundamental sciences of rock mass and material strength, the thermal decomposition, burning, shock initiation, and detonation behavior of commercial and military explosives, and systems for charging explosives into drillholes. Functional descriptions of all current detonators and initiation systems are...