Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. BLASTING AND DEMOLITIONS.
Reading edition
BLASTING.
94. Blasts are small mines used generally for breaking up rocks, or masonry in demolitions.
95. Holes for placing the charges are drilled usually with drill-bars or churn-drills, known also as jumpers.
These are steel bars sharpened to a chisel edge. The drill-bar is usually held by one man and struck with a hammer by another; it is turned slightly after each blow in order to make a round hole.
For small holes the driller holds the drill in one hand and strikes with the other.
The churn-drill is a longer bar, generally sharpened at both ends and enlarged in the middle. It is used for drilling vertical holes by raising and dropping it in the holes, turning it slightly after each blow.
96. The charge may be gunpowder or high explosive. If the former, it must be thoroughly tamped. If the latter, tamping will greatly increase its effect; but it is in some cases preferable to obtain the desired effect by increasing the charge and saving the time taken in tamping.
97. Blasts are fired by electric fuses, Bickford fuse, firing-tubes, needles, etc.
The fuses have been already described.
The firing-tube is a very small iron pipe, which is inserted in the powder charge and the tamping rammed around it.
After the tamping is finished the tube may be filled with fine powder poured in it if the hole is vertical or inclined downward, or straws filled with powder may be inserted if it inclines upward or is horizontal. A “squib” of wet powder is also sometimes placed in the tube and ignited, when it passes down the tube like a rocket and fires the charge.
The needle is a smooth copper wire, longer than the depth of the hole. It has a ring handle, by which it may be turned around and withdrawn. It is inserted in the charge, the tamping is well rammed around it, and it is withdrawn, leaving a pipe in the tamping, through which fire may be communicated, as described for the firing-tube.
98. Tamping.—The best and safest tamping is perfectly dry silicious sand, poured in the hole so as to fill it completely, but not rammed. It cannot be used in holes which incline upward nor when the needle is used.
In such cases moist clay, brick-dust, etc., are used. The first layers are pressed in upon the charge, and the subsequent ones thoroughly rammed down with a copper tamping-bar. A hammer is used with the bar, when necessary, in deep holes and hard rock.
With high explosives no tamping should be used except dry sand or water. Holes which incline upwards should receive an extra charge and be untamped.
99. Determining the Charge.—The charge of gunpowder or high explosive required for any particular hole in ordinary blasting can be best estimated by an experienced blaster. If one is not to be obtained, an approximate estimate for the first experiment may be made from the formulas (counting the high explosives about four or five times as strong as gunpowder for ordinary use), and the charges for subsequent blasts may be estimated from the effects of those first fired.
100. Precautions.—If a tamped hole misses fire it should never be cleared out for recharging. A new hole should be drilled near, but not breaking into it.
Electric fuses or Bickford fuses (with blasting-caps for high explosives) should always be used when they can be obtained.
DEMOLITIONS.
101. Deliberate Demolitions, such as the destruction of walls, casemates, etc., in time of peace, or at a distance from the enemy in time of war, should be so made as to economize powder and work. To accomplish this, the mines and blasts should be located where they will produce the best effects attainable, and the charges should be proportioned to the work required from them.
The table previously given (p. 124) will serve as a guide for computing the first charges used, and from the results of these the charges of subsequent ones may be determined.
Judgment must be used in placing the charges, so that, when possible, they will destroy the supports and allow the superstructure to break up by falling.
The charges will usually be placed in chambers under or hollowed out in the masonry. Sometimes they are more advantageously placed in a trench outside and close to the foot of the walls. They should always be well tamped: when in mine-chambers, by methods previously described; when in trenches, or laid along the exterior of walls, by loading them with earth, etc., until the line of least resistance passes through the wall to be destroyed.
102. Hasty Demolitions are made when the time available for the work is limited.
The structures usually destroyed are houses, walls, stockades, bridges, tunnels, canal-locks, railroads, rolling-stock, etc., etc.
The time does not usually allow the charge to be placed in the most advantageous position or to be properly tamped. For this reason the high explosives are best suited for this kind of work, and large charges are a necessity.
103. Houses and Magazines are best destroyed by placing several charges with connecting trains inside and along the walls, laying strong timbers upon them, with struts from the timbers to the floors and roof above; barricading the doors and windows from within, and firing the powder from a safe distance without.
104. Walls.—A wall not exceeding 3 or 4 feet in thickness may be breached by charges of gunpowder placed at intervals along it. Calling the thickness of the wall in feet t, the charge in pounds may be 3t3, placed at intervals of 2t.
For gun-cotton the Woolwich rule calls for charges in pounds of from ⅓t2 to ½t2 per running foot. Experiments made in New York with dynamite indicate that the charges should be at least ½t2 per running foot, and for very good masonry should exceed this.
A charge of dynamite of ½t2 per running foot will be given by a cylindrical cartridge whose diameter in inches equals the thickness of the wall in feet.22 The effect of the charge will be very much increased by throwing over it even a very light tamping of earth or sand.
105. Stockades.—A strong stockade or palisade may be broken down by charges of from 40 to 60 lbs. of gunpowder placed in contact with it, and preferably covered with sand-bags. 10 or 15 lbs. of high explosive should produce about the same effect.
106. Bridges.—Arched bridges are best attacked in the piers if high and thin, or at the haunches and crown of the arch. Two or more charges in the length of the pier, or width of the roadway, will be more effective than the same amount in a single charge at the middle.
The charges should be placed in chambers cut in the piers or down through the roadway to the back of the arch.
The abutments of single-span arches are generally very strong, and the haunches well covered with earth and masonry. In hurried work, therefore, the crown will generally be selected, a trench dug down to it across the roadway, the charge placed in the trench, tamped if possible, and fired.23
High explosives, from their shattering effect, are perhaps most advantageously used by suspending them beneath and in contact with the arch at the crown and haunches. The plank or timber upon which they are placed should be as heavy as possible, in order to act as a partial tamping, and should be drawn up so that the explosive will be in actual contact with the soffit of the arch.
Under these circumstances they should produce as great an effect as four or five times their weight of gunpowder.
Iron and wooden truss-bridges should be thrown down by breaking the main braces near the piers, or the chords near the centre, by charges placed in a joint if possible. High explosives are particularly valuable for this purpose.
In wooden bridges they may be placed in auger-holes bored for them, and in iron bridges inside the hollow members, between eye-bars, or in other similar places.
107. Tunnels, Canal-locks, and similar constructions must be attacked with large charges, so placed as to temporarily or permanently disable the work, as may be considered necessary. The location of each charge should be determined and its amount computed from these considerations before the destruction is attempted.
A temporary obstruction is frequently all that is necessary or desirable for these works, and the damage done to them should be carefully regulated with a view to their subsequent repair and use.
108. Railroads.—Railroads are temporarily disabled by tearing up the track, making hot fires of piles of ties, placing the rails upon them so that they will heat and bend by their own weight; or, better still, twisting the rails while hot by suitably-shaped steel hooks and wooden levers of the kind devised by General Haupt (Pl. XII, Fig. 33). Rails so twisted cannot be again used until re-rolled.
109. Rolling-stock.—Railroad cars may be disabled by breaking one or more wheels with sledges, or may be destroyed by burning. Locomotives may be disabled temporarily by carrying away the smaller parts of the mechanism, or permanently by breaking the engine-cylinders with sledges; bursting the boilers or burning out their fire-boxes by drawing out nearly all their water, fastening down the safety-valves, and building a hot fire in the furnaces; or by making a hot fire under them so as to heat and thus bend or warp the reciprocating parts of the machinery.
110. In all hasty demolitions with explosives the charges should be well in excess of those computed by the ordinary rules: first, because the explosives will not be so placed as to act to the greatest advantage; and, second, because the demolition should be immediate and complete.