VINTAGE 1966 Explosives for Engineers (Australia) / C E Gregory

Second edition 1966

146 pages

Australian professional engineers at graduation have had little opportunity to embrace much of the rudimentary lore and practice of explosives. Many of them gain little more knowledge throughout their professional careers. Yet, to my mind, the intelligent use of explosives represents an important tool in many fields of engineering endeavour.

Although a sound knowledge of explosives principles is basic to the mining engineer, and very important to the civil engineer, I find, as a university teacher, that the competition for lecture hours in our already congested curricula precludes the opportunity to cover the ground, even superficially, in formal lectures.

It thus becomes necessary to deflect too large a part of the work to private reading by students. This again is a pious hope in view of the aforesaid crammed curricula and the meagre hours available for reading. But it would be significantly easier if there were available some publication dealing with the elementary principles and practices of those particular explosives marketed in Australia and used under Australian conditions.

Undoubtedly, there are some admirable textbooks and trade handbooks dealing with explosives in general, based mainly on types and classes of explosives manufactured and marketed in overseas countries. But it is too difficult and confusing for students in the time available to sift and screen this material and to gain a firm conception of modern explosive practice in terms of the particular explosives manufactured in Australia.

Hence, I have been inspired to write this "primer" or elementary monograph on the basic principles, types available,and methods applicable to the Australasian scene. I make no claim to have covered the subject exhaustively either in breadth or depth. On the other hand, I have had great difficulty in confining the material to basic principles and generalities.