| Differences exist between public perception of construction blasting and quarry blasting. In general, people are able to tolerate short term inconveniences much better than long term ones.; Quarries and other long teen mining operations utilizing blasting are coining under increasing public and legislative pressure in the United States. The question being posed for the blasting industry is, "Has our past haste in adopting complex scientific scales and units been detrimental to us?" In other words, are the most palatable things being reported? The goal of this dissertation is to determine whether current units create an atmosphere of discomfort among neighbors to quarries, putting the public relations efforts of the company at a disadvantage from the start.; Several Likert scaled surveys were distributed and analyzed across many constituencies.{09}The surveys evaluate the decibel (dB) scale against millibar and pounds per square inch (PSI) as units for measurement of airblast pressure. Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) and frequency (Hz) were also compared to displacement in both inches (in) and millimeters (mm) for vibration measurement. Other qualitative data was gathered to direct future work in this area. Pilot surveys have been administered and their results published over the past three years. The thesis work is a much more comprehensive analysis of surveys modeled after the original survey described in the introduction.; The industry is already starting the process of rethinking how it handles the vibration issue. The past practice of treading softly as an industry has been proven to be a poor choice, and education of the public as well as lawmakers on all levels is necessary.*; *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office. |
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