blasting fragmentation prediction, stacking integrated strategy, random forest, XGBoost, Technology, Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General), TA1-2040, Biology (General), QH301-705.5, Physics, QC1-999, Chemistry, QD1-999

The size distribution of rock fragments significantly influences subsequent operations in geotechnical and mining engineering projects. Thus, accurate prediction of this distribution according to the relevant blasting design parameters is essential. This study employs artificial intelligence methods to predict the fragmentation of open-pit bench blasting. The study employed a dataset comprising 97 blast fragment samples. Random forest and XGBoost models were utilized as base learners. A prediction model was developed using the stacking integrated strategy to enhance predictive performance. The model’s performance was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R2), the mean square error (MSE), the root mean square error (RMSE), and the mean absolute error (MAE). The results indicated that the model achieved the highest prediction accuracy, with an R2 of 0.943. In the training set, the model achieved MSE, RMSE, and MAE values of 0.00269, 0.05187, and 0.03320, while in the testing set, these values were 0.00197, 0.04435, and 0.03687, respectively. The model was validated using five sets of actual blasting block data from a northeastern mining area, which yielded more accurate prediction results. These findings demonstrate that the stacking strategy effectively enhances the prediction performance of a single model and offers innovative approaches to predicting blasting block size.