Integrating unascertained measurement and information entropy theory to assess blastability of rock mass

Due to the complex features of rock mass blastability assessment systems, an evaluation model of rock mass blastability was established on the basis of the unascertained measurement (UM) theory and the actual characteristics of the project. Considering a comprehensive range of intact rock properties and discontinuous structures of rock mass, twelve main factors influencing the evaluation blastability of rock mass were taken into account in the UM model, and the blastability evaluation index system of rock mass was constructed. The unascertained evaluation indices corresponding to the selected factors for the actual situation were solved both qualitatively and quantitatively. Then, the UM function of each evaluation index was obtained based on the initial data for the analysis of the blastability of six rock mass at a highway improvement cutting site in North Wales. The index weights of the factors were calculated by entropy theory, and credible degree identification (CDI) criteria were established according to the UM theory. The results of rock mass blastability evaluation were obtained by the CDI criteria. The results show that the UM model assessment results agree well with the actual records, and are consistent with those of the fuzzy sets evaluation method. Meanwhile, the unascertained superiority degree of rock mass blastability of samples S1-S6 which can be calculated by scoring criteria are 3.428 5, 3.453 3, 4.058 7, 3.675 9, 3.516 7 and 3.289 7, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed method can take into account large amount of uncertain information in blastability evaluation, which can provide an effective, credible and feasible way for estimating the blastability of rock mass. Engineering practices show that it can complete the blastability assessment systematically and scientifically without any assumption by the proposed model, which can be applied to practical engineering.