Generation of electric and magnetic field during detonation of high explosive charges in boreholes

Abstract

We present experimental results of a study of electromagnetic field generation during underground detonation of high explosive charges in holes bored in sandy loam and granite. Three components of electric field (vertical component in air and two horizontal components in the soil) and three components of the magnetic induction were recorded during the field experiments. Test conditions and physicomechanical properties of the soil exert significant influence on the parameters of electromagnetic signals generated by underground explosions with masses of 2-200 kg. The electric and magnetic field experimental data are satisfactorily described by an electric dipole model with the source embedded in layered media. We used the solution for a field produced by stationary vertical and horizontal electric dipoles placed near the interface between two layers with different conductivity. The magnitude of the field source was estimated on the basis of the records of electromagnetic signals obtained at different distances from the borehole. For an underground explosion of a TNT charge with a mass of 2 kg carried out in granite the maximum estimated value of the electric dipole component is about 10-7 C m. This estimate is more than an order of magnitude greater than that obtained for an explosion of the same mass carried out in sandy loam. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.