Explosives - Tool For Progress

string your wires over by the drill now no back two feet that way we're all ready let's clear them out okay let her go startled I thought so perfectly natural human reflex somebody's blasting it's a sound you hear all over the country today the sound of progress want to see what we mean well first an explosive is a very powerful tool without this tool you wouldn't have oh electric power dish racks Moon Rockets or potato Peters sure back in history men raised pyramids dug coal and iron but think of the cost and without explosives we'd still be there start with this excavation Manhattan Island is founded on Solid Rock So historically explosives have been an essential tool in the city's growth turn of the century they helped tunnel the world's first great subway system the descendants of these workers live in buildings taller than their grandfathers would have believed [Music] possible that Trap Rock Island supports the skycrapers but their basements have to be blasted out of it the last shot here took place an hour ago and the crumbled Rock is being mucked out and hauled away the next one goes before the end of the day and before then other blasts will be set off in lots of places for lots of different [Music] [Laughter] reasons in 3 years a 47-story building will stand in this growing crater and plenty of others are rising around it [Music] explosives where next some 3,000 miles across the country the Columbia river runs between the scrub wastelands and Granite Hills of Eastern Washington to harness its flow for irrigation flood control and the generation of electricity construction was begun in 1933 on one of the mightiest structures ever built by the hand of man completed in 1941 it stretches 4,300 ft Across The Gorge and Towers 550 ft above the boiling Waters below Grand Dam hundreds of tons of explosives were expended on that site now years later work begins again on a project to widen the gorge and extend the dam for a third power station this time 36 million tons of granite will be excavated in the first two stages alone explosives are still the only remotely conceivable tool for this job shots of the magnitude set off here usually take place twice a day at shift change when the area is clear of men and machines the next one is set for 6:00 and those huge electric shovels are digging out rubble from the last shot in 25 ton bites it might not look necessary but the blasting operation here will be just as precisely controlled as it is in the middle of Manhattan [Music] the dam and its Generating Station are still operating producing power at full capacity and the Wayward chunk of rock in that electrical equipment below or a shock to the dam itself could have very serious consequences if you want to get to the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic by sailing East there's a way to do it the solution to this Geographic riddle occupied the considerable energies of our 25th president and in 7 years required 61 million PBS of explosives to blast a big ditch across the ismos of Panama 280 million cubic yards and we're back again for more today the size of the vessels and the volume of traffic have made it necessary to widen the cut but here the blasting materials must function underwater as well as in the dry Earth and rock no big uncontrolled bang here either the vital Commerce of ships must continue continue to pass while the work goes on two shots were set for today and the underwater debris from the first is already being brought up the second follows within a few hours three separate projects Panama Grand kulie and New York each one an example of the hundreds of tasks performed by industrial explosives and each one presenting a different problem to the engineers who will use them today the first step in any blasting project is drilling whole location depth and the overall drilling pattern for each shot are but a few of the expert calculations made in the course of the job by geologists civil engineers surveyors and explosives Engineers what's the most productive way to keep the shovels working a delicate relationship exists between the explosives used and the capacity of the Earth moving equipment The Rock must be broken into fragments neither too small nor too large it must be easy to get at and available for loading at the right [Music] time at Grand kolie alone $12 million worth of heavy equipment must be kept operating at Peak efficiency [Music] the flat surface of this white new Cliff face is the result of a Precision blasting technique called pre-splitting when these drill holds are finished and the charge is detonated another section will be sheared away cleanly and smoothly out on the level surface of the cut another formation of drilling rigs clatters away each with its own attendance like giant mosquitoes fastened to the Rock 40 ft down for each bore hole this final series of holes and the pattern must be ready for today's shot no time for a broken Shaft or a dull bit next the most important ingredient of all the explosives themselves must be readily available to the blasting crew this storage magazine in New Jersey is within an hour's Drive of the New York site it is isolated fire and bullet resistant and kept securely locked [Music] blasting caps are stored separately from the explosive materials themselves and both are transported in compliance with the laws and regulations of the state of New Jersey and the Federal Department of [Music] Transportation safety is the word in the vocabulary of a explosives even the truck itself is Thoroughly checked before it starts its drive to the excavation [Music] site it is only common sense to treat a tool of this potential power with care and respect but Common Sense isn't enough the men involved in the storage transportation and use of commercial explosives observe standards of safety and apply operating procedures developed over a Century of Industry experience most of these self-developed procedures have been written directly into the safety regulations and laws for this vital [Music] industry the effects of each blast are closely examined here at Grand kolie a deciel counter and a seismograph monitor the shots sound and shock waves are recorded to ensure that noise levels and ground vibrations stay within established limits at a major project like Grand kolie or the canal the various explosive ingredients are often stored individually and mixed together on the job site one of the blasting agents used at kolie is a mixture of ammonium nitrate and a fuel oil this explosives engineer supervising the loading might have used the same material in mining quarrying road construction and flood control here as in New Jersey separate storage for blasting caps and they're carried to the Loading site in a smaller [Music] truck explosives have not only become more sophisticated over the years they come safer these ammonium nitrate prills are only used as an explosive after they've been mixed with other ingredients loaded and primed [Music] at the canal another type of explosive is required the problems of underwater blasting are solved by using a water gel or slurry here pumped into plastic [Music] bags explosive makers don't sell bricks dumped on the job site and left to the Builder over the years the explosives industry has developed the knowhow on the special uses of its products and upto-date Technical information about them is made widely available even in the jungles of Panama this truck is delivering a modern explosive product into the hands of qualified technicians the same type of explosive is used at Grand kolie for drill holes into which groundwater has seeped or in IR regular holes drill through pockets of softer Rock the gel flows in and completely fills the hole [Music] the ingredients are suspended in water to produce a high density high energy semifluid explosive that can be pumped into any size bore hole hand loading holes with dynamite here could take days [Music] ammonium nitrate fuel oil mix at Grand Koli water gel at kolie and the canal and more conventional Dynamite from Storage in New Jersey all must be available at the proper time and in sufficient amounts for the loading Crews and the three shots at the end of the day so far you can begin to see three big reasons why explosives are so vital to our standard of Life a fourth example might be the highway that truck travels on passenger cars semis Good Humor wagons motorcycles all pass smoothly and quickly over this road and the thousands of miles of interstate highways constructed with the aid of [Music] [Music] explosives what's this domestic scene Got to Do With It All all well highways dams canals and skyscrapers are unmistakable symbols of the part played by explosives in our lives other contributions are a little less apparent it's a bit like the house that Jack built or in this case the meal that Jill cooked this is the blast that Min The Ore to forge the steel the chape the knife to peel the well the r time goes on and on but these kitchen utensils are made readily and cheaply available to all because of [Music] explosives these irrigation ditches dug with explosive charges carry water to growing [Music] vegetables and explosives help pipe that water into the sink which is itself made of you see what we mean salt for seasoning was mined with explosives marble for the coffee table and even further removed the Plastics and synthetics you use derive chemically from things like coal Min by guess what and natural gas the same gas that heats the oven that bakes the bread and the pie is carried in pipelines put in trench is dug with this kind of game can be extended indefinitely even to such highly sophisticated uses as the precise explosive charges used to separate rocket stages and our Reach for the Stars [Music] [Music] [Music] at Grand Coy the drilling is finished the blasting area cleared of equipment and the holes ready for loading each hole is rechecked for water content depth and location in fact the engineer keeps an extensive biography of their individual [Music] peculiarities precision and control no fly Rock in the Transformer yard no cracks in the dam first the primer charge is lowered to the bottom but each hole will not be set off at the same time for a very important reason the numbers on these detonating cords refer to the exact number of milliseconds of delay Play Between the detonation of each hole starting from zero primer set and the holes are ready for loading in New York it's already begun but here the blasting material selected is dynamite and here electrical initiation [Music] several sticks of dynamite and then the primer is placed further up the hole sand is used to seal off the top [Music] loading at Grand the water gel goes first a job like this used to take more time and more hands bulk loed explosives pumped right from the truck mean speed and simplified handling and that means economy and safety [Music] the rest of the hole is filled up with a prepared ammonium nitrate [Music] mix at Grand the job situation calls for non-electric initiation and the arteries of detonating cord connecting each hole explode at 4 m a second remember those cords with the numbers on them well the engineers intend to shape their rock pile the center goes up first and into that space the sides fall like lifting the roof up and collapsing the walls you build a pyramid easier to get at New York Grand kolie and Panama looting here is almost finished water gel is pumped into the onshore [Music] holes and frogmen assist in loading and priming the wet half [Music] [Music] but in New York there's one final step blast taking place in populated areas are controlled not only by the kind and amount of explosives used but by laying on huge wire rope mats to contain all flying debris [Music] at every sight the whistle clears the area and hours of careful preparation are over [Music] those three shots today set off thousands of pounds of explosives and they did their jobs quickly safely and economically man has moved Rock mined coal and iron ore and dug ditches with with pick and shovel or his bare hands in some parts of the world he still does but with explosives the right kind at the right time and in the right place his constructive energies can be multiplied a thousandfold when the work here is finished Grand cooling will be one of the largest hydroelectrical generating systems in the world [Music] so next time you hear you'll probably still jump but when you think about it you'll recognize it is the sound of progress [Music] [Music]