Explosives and blasting agents

Scope

OSHA’s regulations at 1910.109 apply to the manufacture, keeping, having, storage, sale, transportation, and use of explosives, blasting agents, and pyrotechnics. The section does not apply to the sale and use (public display) of pyrotechnics, commonly known as fireworks, nor the use of explosives in the form prescribed by the official U.S. Pharmacopeia.

Regulatory citations

• 29 CFR 1910.109 — Explosives and blasting agents

Key definitions

• Blasting agent. Any material or mixture, consisting of a fuel and oxidizer, intended for blasting, not otherwise classified as an explosive and in which none of the ingredients are classified as an explosive, provided that the finished product, as mixed and packaged for use or shipment, cannot be detonated by means of a No. 8 test blasting cap when unconfined.
• DOT specifications. Regulations of the Department of Transportation published in 49 CFR Chapter I.
• Explosive-actuated power devices. Any tool or special mechanized device which is actuated by explosives, but not including propellant-actuated power devices. Examples of explosive-actuated power devices are jet tappers and jet perforators.
• Explosive. Any chemical compound, mixture, or device, the primary or common purpose of which is to function by explosion, i.e., with substantially instantaneous release of gas and heat, unless such compound, mixture, or device is otherwise specifically classified by the U.S. Department of Transportation; see 49 CFR Chapter I.
  
  The term “explosives” shall include all material which is classified as Class A, Class B, and Class C explosives by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and includes, but is not limited to dynamite, black powder, pellet powders, initiating explosives, blasting caps, electric blasting caps, safety fuse, fuse lighters, fuse igniters, squibs, cordeau detonant fuse, instantaneous fuse, igniter cord, igniters, small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers, smokeless propellant, cartridges for propellant-actuated power devices, and cartridges for industrial guns. Commercial explosives are those explosives which are intended to be used in commercial or industrial operations.
• Magazine. Any building or structure, other than an explosives manufacturing building, used for the storage of explosives.
• Propellant-actuated power devices. Any tool or special mechanized device or gas generator system which is actuated by a smokeless propellant or which releases and directs work through a smokeless propellant charge.
• Pyrotechnics. Any combustible or explosive compositions or manufactured articles designed and prepared for the purpose of producing audible or visible effects which are commonly referred to as fireworks.
• Semiconductive hose. A hose with an electrical resistance high enough to limit flow of stray electric currents to safe levels, yet not so high as to prevent drainage of static electric charges to ground; hose of not more than 2 megohms resistance over its entire length and of not less than 5,000 ohms per foot meets the requirement.
• Small arms ammunition. Any shotgun, rifle, pistol, or revolver cartridge, and cartridges for propellant-actuated power devices and industrial guns. Military-type ammunition containing explosive-bursting charges, incendiary, tracer, spotting, or pyrotechnic projectiles is excluded from this definition.
• Small arms ammunition primers. Small percussion-sensitive explosive charges, encased in a cup, used to ignite propellant powder.
• Smokeless propellants. Solid propellants, commonly called smokeless powders in the trade, used in small arms ammunition, cannon, rockets, propellant-actuated power devices, etc.
• Special industrial explosives devices. Explosive-actuated power devices and propellant-actuated power devices.
• Special industrial explosives materials. Shaped materials and sheet forms and various other extrusions, pellets, and packages of high explosives, which include dynamite, trinitrotoluene (TNT), pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-s-triazine (RDX), and other similar compounds used for high-energy-rate forming, expanding, and shaping in metal fabrication, and for dismemberment and quick reduction of scrap metal.
• Water gels or slurry explosives. These comprise a wide variety of materials used for blasting. They all contain substantial proportions of water and high proportions of ammonium nitrate, some of which is in solution in the water. Two broad classes of water gels are (i) those which are sensitized by a material classed as an explosive, such as TNT or smokeless powder, (ii) those which contain no ingredient classified as an explosive; these are sensitized with metals such as aluminum or with other fuels. Water gels may be premixed at an explosives plant or mixed at the site immediately before delivery into the borehole.

Summary of requirements

Employers must follow requirements regarding:

• Storage of explosives — 1910.109(c)
• Transportation of explosives — 1910.109(d)
• Use of explosives and blasting agents — 1910.109(e)
• Explosives at piers, railway stations, and cars or vessels not otherwise specified in 1910.109 — 1910.109(f)
• Blasting agents — 1910.109(g)
• Water gel (slurry) explosives and blasting agents — 1910.109(h)
• Storage of ammonium nitrate — 1910.109(i)
• Small arms ammunition, small arms primers, and small arms propellants — 1910.109(j)