The Importance of Internships for Explosives Engineering Students

Gillian Worsey, Missouri University of Science and Technology

&
Paul Worsey, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Abstract
The explosives industry is about to reach a critical turning point in human resources. The average age of
employees of the largest US explosives company is over 50 and an estimated 5,000 engineers are due to
retire from the mining industry over the next decade, with less than 200 mining graduates per year
nationally. Not just in the USA, this is a worldwide problem. In Canada the Mining Industry Human
Resources Council (MIHRC), reported that older mining engineers are retiring early at the age of 59.5
on average. It predicts that mining companies will need to hire 370 mining engineers by 2016 and 665
by 2021. The Minerals Council of Australia has predicted the need for an additional 86,000 mining
professionals and skilled mine workers by 2020, and the Indian mining industry is also facing a shortage
of between 2,500 to 3,000 engineers per year.
It is therefore essential that graduates employed in the explosives industry are able to hit the ground
running and draw on their knowledge to become productive engineers from the start. Missouri
University of Science and Technology has a long tradition in training and educating explosives
engineers. The university was founded as the Missouri School of Mines in 1871 because there was a
perceived need for educating mining engineers, training in the use of explosives being a part of the
mining engineering degree from the start. At the university students receive a solid foundation in the
science and art of explosives engineering, with practical, hands on training at the universitys
experimental mine since 1913. However one of the most valuable parts of their training is summer
internships and coop opportunities within the industry itself. The department of mining engineering
strives to place every student in a summer internship, especially once they begin taking mining classes.
This paper describes how important summer internships are to the education of future explosives
engineers and shows through case studies how the summer internships of a number of students have
helped to turn them into productive engineers.

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Introduction
Explosives engineering is typically taught in university departments of mining engineering since mining
is where the largest amounts of explosives are used. Unfortunately mining student numbers fell
dramatically in the 1990s and into this century, as mining engineering was perceived as unattractive. In
the early 2000s it became clear that much more effort was needed to recruit students to fulfill the needs
of industry. In contrast, the majority of mining industry engineers were entering retirement age, and will
need to be replaced (Richter, 2012), not just in the USA, this is a worldwide problem.
We are pleased to report that the increased recruitment efforts have paid off and that the department now
has over 200 undergraduate students with 40 graduate students on campus and a further 35 graduate
students taking classes online. However this has created another problem. Whilst the students receive a
solid foundation in the science and art of explosives engineering, with practical training at the university
mine, one of the most valuable parts of their education is summer internships and coop opportunities
within industry itself and the increase in student numbers has caused an increase in the need for
internships. The following case studies of some of our explosives engineering MS graduates show how
internships have given them valuable experience beyond what they can learn in the classroom and in
many cases lead to them obtaining the jobs they currently hold in industry.
Case Study 1
This student discovered an interest in research from internships after his junior and senior years with an
oil services company. The first year he did shaped charge research, especially the development of
materials to use in inexpensive manufacturing of shaped charges and quality control. During this
internship he learnt about the importance of shaped charges in the oil well completion process, the
shaped charge manufacturing process, quality control techniques, and the handling and chemistry of
explosive compounds. The second year he also did shaped charge research but on the development of a
shaped charge scaling technique for small charges used in oil well perforation. In this internship he
learnt the importance of research in industrial settings, planning and budgeting of research projects and
how to work in a corporate environment.
This student went on to an MS in Explosives Engineering because of a growing interest in the explosive
and blasting industry that started with his internships. They taught him safe practices, while
encouraging him to think for himself, and opened his eyes to the opportunities in the industry. He did
his research thesis on the mitigation effects of a barrier wall on blast wave pressures. He was very
active in extra curricular activities while a student, including SME, mine rescue, mucking and the
student design competition. He was a member of the ISEE student chapter for three years and has
attended the ISEE conference for six years. He was also an ISEE scholarship holder for three years.
After graduating with his MS he was hired by a mining consulting company where he has worked on a
large variety of projects. For underground mines these have included mine planning and design,
ventilation planning, contractor management during various stages of development, survey work, roof
support and control analysis, tunnel stability analysis, time studies and analysis, blast optimization and
blast damage mitigation. For surface mines they have included mine planning and design, slope stability
and failure analysis of backfill, permitting, hydrogeomorphic analysis of streams, time studies and
analysis, post-blast structural damage assessment, and blast vibration measurement and analysis. He is a
member of his local ISEE chapter and has presented two papers at the ISEE conference. He is currently
working on his Ph.D. through distance education.

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Figure 1. Student Number 1 on a Job Site.

Case Study 2
This students illustrates how internships can lead to new employees, although his first internship
experiences at the end of his freshman and sophomore years were at a sand and aggregate supply
company close to his home. The first year he helped to load customers in the yard and run the office,
taking orders and dispatching deliveries, so he learnt mostly office work, but also learnt how to run a
CAT 950 wheel loader. The second year he also worked in the office for a time but mostly screened dirt
and learnt how to run a Komatsu wheel loader and a Trommel dirt screen.
After his junior year he had an internship with an underground metal mine, where he worked with the
blasting crews, doing a lot of loading and shooting of burn cuts and slabs and the occasional lift shot.
He also helped to string utilities, set pumps, haul explosives to and from the magazines, did some
scaling and pushed the grizzly. During this internship he learnt a lot about how underground mining
works at the face and how to support those operations.

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His last two internship experiences at the end of his senior years were at a surface coal mine. The first
year he made isopach maps to show how qualities were distributed through the coal, worked on several
minor design projects, and did a lot of Excel work. He spent time in the pit, worked with the drill and
blast crew and served as a backup surveyor. He learnt how the surface coal business works and the
order of operations and especially learnt that there is more to mining than working at the face. The
second year he designed a small truck/shovel pit at the end of a dragline pit, worked with the long range
engineer on site to create haul length maps for budgeting, and created some detailed Excel spreadsheets.
He learnt a lot about cut and dump design, including how dumps should interface with the post-miningtopography permitted to each mine and received a good introduction to short-range truck/shovel
operations. At school he was a teaching assistant for the drilling and blasting classes.
After his graduate studies this student was hired by the company where he did his last internships as a
short range truck/shovel engineer. On this job he designed cuts and dumps to sustain the truck shovel
portion of a 36 million ton per year coal mine, designed cut advances and blended dumps with the postmining-topography, calculated volumes moved from month to month, managed short range planning to
safely meet production goals, and worked on many other tasks. The introduction to short range
truck/shovel operations that he received during his last internship was invaluable when he started this
job. He was able to hit the ground running. Additionally he had already worked with a number of
people at the mine during a previous internship. He was a member of the ISEE chapter whilst a student
and attended four ISEE conferences. Once working he became a member of the local chapter, holding
the position of board member He has now returned to academia to finish working on his Ph.D.

Figure 2. Student Number 2 on an Internship at a Surface Coal Mine

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Case Study 3
This students illustrates the depth of experience that can be gained through internships. His first
internship was at the end of his freshman year with a contract blasting company that provides shot
service and explosives distribution. During the internship he helped with the shot service, helping to
load and tie in holes in the area quarries served by the company. He also helped load and bag packaged
explosives, including bagging ANFO prill into 50 lb bags, helped load trucks with explosives for
delivery and provided manual labor in general. During this internship he learnt about basic shot service,
including what goes into loading shots and how much work is involved. He learnt how to time shots
with non-electric and electronic detonators and got to see and learn about a variety of different small
surface operations.
His second internship was at the end of his sophomore year at an underground stoping metal mine. On
this internship he worked underground with the blast crew and did a project to help with overbreak
control. He did development drift blasting and stope production blasting. He also wrote up drill and
blast procedures and product description guides for new hires and did some survey work underground.
During this internship he learnt about underground blasting for both development and production and
about scale and confinement differences between surface and underground blasting. He also learnt
about working with other groups outside his own group to get a project completed.
After his junior year his third internship was at an underground cut and fill drift metal mine that was just
starting production. During this internship he did a wide variety of tasks that included underground
drilling and explosive loading for tunnel rounds. He also did geology work, including taking samples
and mapping underground headings, short term planning design work and a mine equipment time study
of loaders, jammers, haul trucks, drillers, bolters and shotcreters. The latter involved working night
shifts. On this internship he learnt about a lot of different departments and saw a lot of parts of the
operation rather than one aspect in particular.
After his senior year he did an internship at a surface strip coal mine, in the heavy equipment
maintenance department. He spent the summer writing standard operating procedures for replacing
parts on the heavy equipment and worked on the dragline maintenance crew, the shovel field
maintenance crew, in the heavy equipment maintenance shop and worked on maintenance planning in
the preventative maintenance group. He learnt about what goes into maintenance and the importance of
the balance between production and preventative maintenance. He also learnt how to change parts in
heavy equipment and learnt the ins and outs of draglines and Hitachi shovels. He also gained experience
in maintenance scheduling and planning and in writing standard operating procedures.
After a year of graduate school he did an internship at a surface metal mine in the short term planning
department, where he assisted with the planning of daily and weekly tasks. He also did a truck study,
comparing the actual times with times estimated by the companys dispatch program and worked with
the survey crew. He also worked with the blast crew loading holes and learnt how to design blast
patterns using the companys proprietary software, and participated on the mine rescue team. On this
last internship he learnt how to use survey equipment for surface mining, how to load blast patterns in a
large production environment and the different types of software used at the mine.
This student was very active in extra curricular activities, particularly the mucking team, and was also a
teaching assistant. He was a member of the ISEE student chapter every year he was in school and

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served as the president and the social chair. He attended the ISEE national conference every year and
was also an ISEE scholarship holder every year. After graduating with his MS he was hired by the
company where he did his last internship and is now their drill and blast engineer. One of the projects
he is currently working on is stope collapse into former underground workings and the experience he
gained from his underground internships has proved invaluable for this. He will be presenting his
second ISEE paper on another work blasting project at this conference.

Figure 3. Student Number 3 Prepares for a Stope Collapse Blast

Case Study 4
This student illustrates how the experience gained from internships is invaluable even though they were
not at the same type of operation as his first full time job. His first internship experience was at a
surface coal mine after his junior year. During the internship he drove a haul truck, worked on a
dragline, helped with a pit-pumping project and on surveying projects. It was a great experience for him
as he was able to get a firsthand look at a mining operation from several points of view.
His second internship was after his senior year at an underground gypsum mine, where he was hired by
the geotechnical department to work with the contractors in charge of the exploration drilling and to
catalog the core samples. He also spent some time with the mining engineers working on equipment
performance and allocation. During this internship he learnt about the core drilling processes and
methods to differentiate between the different rock types encountered at the mine. He also gained
experience in talking with contractors and vendors and learnt about how an underground mine operates
and some of the difficulties entailed.

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After his first year of graduate school he did a third internship at a different surface coal mine, where he
worked on several projects, including pit scheduling, designing a fuel pad for large equipment and
designing several haul roads and ramps. He also spent several days working with the blast crews and
surveyors. This internship gave him a great chance to do a lot of design work and experience in using
mine design software. He also learnt a lot about sequencing out mining cuts and the potential issues that
typically cause problems for mine operations. For his research thesis he worked on a project for an
underground metal mine, comparing the costs of using ANFO and emulsion at their operation.
This student was a member of the ISEE student chapter and attended ISEE conferences. He was active
on the mine rescue team and was a teaching assistant and course instructor. On graduation he was hired
by a surface metal mine as a short range planner where he develops the daily, weekly and monthly plans
for the shovels and works with operations to ensure the plans are being followed and that any issues that
may arise are handled properly. The wide range of experience that he gained from his internships has
helped him to see the operation from different points of view and use those points of view to develop
better quality plans. Being an intern at different mines gave him insight into how different mines
operate and develop their plans and he has been able to put this insight to good use on the job.

Figure 4. Student Number 4 On the Job

Case Study 5
This student also illustrates how internships can lead to employment opportunities. He started off his
internships after his freshman year by assisting graduate students with their research and other projects
at the university. These ranged from installing a sump pump and fan in the university mine to helping
with explosively formed projectile research which taught him general safe procedures when handling
explosive material.

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His second and third internships, after his sophomore and junior years were at an underground lead
mine. The first year he scaled walls, drilled holes, loaded shots, operated ANFO trucks and operated
haul trucks. He learnt how to work in an underground environment and gained a firsthand
understanding of an underground load/haul mining cycle. The second year he performed a study to
reduce wear on tires and authorized funds for expenditure on mobile equipment. He learnt about the
intricate workings of financing a mine and what 1.1 million dollars can purchase! This year he also
worked on explosives safety and research for three weeks, contributing to the large scale SciPan 5
explosives test at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. This was part of the U.S. DoDs series of
large-scale explosives tests that feed into the worlds computational models of explosives risk
assessments and quantity/distance standards and involved the detonation of 6,600 pounds of TNT inside
a 30x30 foot concrete structure. From it he gained an understanding of debris distribution when a
significant detonation occurs.
After his senior year he did his fourth internship with a commercial explosives company where he used
a computation fluid dynamics (CFD) program to model explosive effects in rock and examined the
limits of the program to predict the frequency of seismic waves. He learnt a lot during this internship
and gained an in-depth understanding of CFD programs and wave propagation in rock after an explosive
event.
This student was a member of the ISEE student chapter for five years and served as the treasurer and
vice president. He attended the ISEE conference for four years and was an ISEE scholarship holder for
four years. He presented a paper at the Best of the West Conference during his senior year. He was also
a member of the mine rescue team and the mine design team and did an undergraduate research project.
After his graduate studies he was hired by an explosives safety and research company that he met at and
was remembered by during the SciPan 5 test. Among the projects he worked on was one that developed
risk based software. The understanding and hands on experience with explosives that he gained through
his internships has given him a beneficial understanding of explosive related affects. In particular
assisting with SciPan 5 gave him knowledge for future work he will perform on the job.
Case Study 6
This student also illustrates the wealth of experience that can be gained through internships. He started
off his internships after his freshman year by working for an aggregate company, where he worked in
blasting, quality control, clean rock plant and drove haul trucks. He learnt the basics of quarry work and
that it takes a lot of manpower.
His second internship was after his sophomore year at a surface metal mine, where he did ore sampling,
helped on a blasting fragmentation optimizations project and trained new hires on the Trimble GPS unit.
From this internship he got a broader sense of how mining operations work from muck to mill and was
given a lot more responsibility with tasks he was capable of doing, which was very rewarding.
After his junior year, his third internship was with a contract blasting company, where he surveyed and
laid out shot patterns, helping in troubleshooting, loaded, stemmed and fired blasts and was responsible
for the explosives inventory. He learnt that being part of the blast crew is hard work and that the harder
you work, the more rewarding a successful day is. He did a lot of surveying and layout work
unsupervised and was given the responsibility of getting it done.
His fourth internship was after his senior year at a surface coal mine where he surveyed and updated
existing spoil profiles and created pre-mining profiles. During this internship he got to use a lot more

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technology to do surveying and learnt to become proficient with a 3D profiler and its associated
software, as well as update maps that surveyors brought in. This student was very active in extra
curricula activities, especially mucking. He was a member of the ISEE student chapter for two years
and attended the ISEE conference for two years. He did his research on the feasibility of using rubber
tractor treads as blasting mats. He is now working on his Ph.D. and for the past three years has been the
instructor for the stage pyrotechnics course, where he has made significant improvements.

Figure 5. Student Number 6 on an Internship with a Contract Blasting Company

Case Study 7
This student has actually not finished his MS yet. He also started his internship experience by assisting
graduate students with their research and other projects at the university after his sophomore year. He
helped the graduate students with their testing and assisted in testing the effects of shaped charges on
steel and reinforced concrete, processed data from high speed camera footage and completed
renovations on the mine ventilation and sump systems. He learnt about the procedures and methods of
conducting various types of explosive research.
After his junior year, his second internship was with an underground limestone operation, where he
aided the powder crew in marking out blast patterns and loading holes, worked with the shot service
company to optimize the mines blasting, monitored blast vibrations on neighboring properties in
conjunction with the seismic monitoring company, calculated daily production figures and explosive
consumption totals, implemented maintenance software for use with all the mines equipment and
assisted the lead mine engineer in updating mine maps and property boundaries. Through this internship
he gained a better understanding of production and management processes in an underground operation.
The subsequent year he interned with the shot service company that served this mine and designed blast

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patterns for customers, loaded shots for hard rock quarries and sand mines, laid out blast patterns to be
drilled, set up seismographs and recorded shot vibration data and utilized software to design electronic
shots. He learnt firsthand the ins and outs of the shot service business, from sales to loading and
everything in between. He attended a county board meeting considering a new mines blasting permit.
After a year of graduate school he had his fourth internship at a surface metal mine, where he worked
extensively with the mines powder crew, evaluated and compared the loading best practices at all three
of the companys mines, conducted an analysis of the failure rates of electronic detonators at all of the
companys properties and designed blast patterns to meet the mines production and fragmentation
requirements. He gained experience in large scale metal mine blasting as well as a better understanding
of the management process in a large metal operation. This student has been very active in extra
curricular activities, especially mucking, SME, NSSGA and WIM. He has been a member of the student
chapter of ISEE for four years, serving as vice president. He has attended the ISEE conference for three
years and received an ISEE scholarship this past year. When he graduates he will bring all of the
experience gained from his internships to his new job.

Figure 6. Student Number 7 on an Internship at a Surface Metal Mine

Conclusions
It can be seen from these case studies that internships provide invaluable experience that students cannot
get in the classroom. The first internship is particularly important because it allows the student to get
their foot in the door and then further internships are easier to obtain, and ultimately it makes the student
very attractive upon graduation. We strive to place every student in a summer internship, especially
once they begin taking mining classes. The problem is that with the increase in student numbers there
are not enough internships to go round. In order to produce engineers that can hit the ground running
with the experience of the students in the case studies we need more companies to step up and provide
internships. Interns provide manpower for projects that might not otherwise get done and can lead to
future employees, so please take the challenge and if you could use an intern or two let us know!
References
Richter, J. (2012). Harvard Losing Out to South Dakota in Graduate Pay: Commodities. Bloomberg.com
News. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-17/harvard-losing-out-to-south-dakota-ingraduate-pay-commodities.html

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