In modern mining industry, rock blasting is one of the essential working for rock breakage in terms of economic and efficient aspects. Blast-induced ground vibration may give serious impacts on wide range of surrounding environment, so it has to be paid much attention in the blasting process. Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) is one of the most important parameters related with blast-induced ground vibration. The prediction of PPV is very important in order to design an appropriate blasting standard and minimize its environmental impacts. However, general prediction equations and/or methods have not been developed yet because they do not consider the impact of rock mass and geological conditions. Therefore, in this paper, indoor tests, field tests and numerical simulation were conducted for assessing the effect of fragment in the rock mass on propagation behavior of ground vibration. In order to enable versatile vibration prediction at different sites with different blasting and geological condition, we investigated the differences in vibration behaviors due to blasting design, and the difference in geological condition. The result of a series of tests suggested that fragments in the rock mass related with the damping behavior of the blast-induced ground vibrations and more accurate prediction of the ground vibration (PPV) could be performed by considering fragment condition in the rock mass.

About 10% of total electricity (386 MkW) was generated by nuclear power plants in the world (2014) and about 58,400 tons of uranium has been mined in uranium mines annually. A plenty of radioactive waste material is produced from uranium mines and nuclear power plants. The wastes must be disposed or stored safely for a long term. Because if they leak and/or move from disposal or storage sites due to air/groundwater flow, then a serious environmental pollution can occur. Hence, multi-layer system has been proposed and employed in order to seal off these radioactive waste materials from biosphere. Basically, bentonite is now used for establishing one of absorbing and sealing layers in this system. However, the amount of high quality bentonite is very limited and in some cases it is hard to be obtained. On the other hand, a great deal of refuse from coal burning plants is produced every year and the amount of it is expected to be higher each year especially in developing countries. More than half of coal ash is utilized and the remaining is disposed at the disposal sites. However, the life of the disposal site is limited and it is difficult to find a new disposal site. It is requested that the percentage of the utilization of the coal ash be increased in every field. From the above two points of view, a fly ash-based barrier system is considered in this research and this paper discusses the applicability of fly ash as a content of barrier material. Based on the results of a series of laboratory tests, it can be concluded that fly ash has a potential for use in the buffer material as the bentonite is substituted.