SARATOGA SPRINGS, UT, January 13, 2022 — Dale S. Preece has been included in Marquis Who’s Who. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected based on current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all considered during the selection process.
Dr. Preece initially obtained a Master of Science in civil engineering from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He continued his education with a Doctor of Philosophy in the same discipline from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Dr. Preece has excelled for over forty years in the field of explosives engineering.
In 1980, Dr. Preece accepted a position with Sandia National Laboratories, one of the three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories in the United States that develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons and high technology. With the aforementioned company in Albuquerque, he worked on a variety of rock mechanics and explosive-related projects.
As a principal and distinguished member of the technical staff with Sandia between 1986 and 2007, Dr. Preece served as technical leader for five engineers and three technicians on a variety of explosives engineering projects. Among them included a substantial five-year Sandia/Oil Industry/University $2.5 million project for prediction and control of sand production in oil wells, an investigation of premature ignition of 20mm explosive bullets in the barrels of M61 six-barrel Gatling guns mounted on FA18 and M16 fighter aircraft, identifying the cause and implementing changes to the bullet design and manufacture and explosive/structure interaction studies for architectural surety at many United States government facilities. Dr. Preece also led the Sandia effort to develop, test and deploy an arm gauntlet for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The gauntlet protects soldiers’ arms from RPG impacts on the doors of a HUMV. A US Patent was awarded for the gauntlet design. Moreover, Mr. Preece developed computer modeling methods to predict the results of rock blasting that resulted in the computer programs Distinct Motion Code (DMC), and DMC-3D, which are utilized to predict rock movement resulting from blasting.
With Orica from 2007 to 2017, Mr. Preece made an impact as a senior research associate, a global technology manager and a senior manager in explosive applications research. He notably developed 2D and 3D rock blasting software, led researchers in the design and continued development of software for predicting the results and effects of rock blasting in terms of vibration, fragmentation and movement and developed a new focused energy explosive booster, which is being patented. Dr. Preece was subsequently active with the Moncourt Group as a senior consultant in 2018.
Dr. Preece was recruited by Dyno Nobel in 2018 as a general manager in its blast modeling technology division, developing its blast modeling capabilities utilizing state-of-art computing resources in terms of much faster processors, substantially increased memory and cloud computing. The results of that effort are the development of a new, radically different, approach to blasting induced fragmentation. That new capability is named FDM (Fracture Density Model) which is a computer program that processes the volume of rock surrounding the blasthole to create a 3D representation of “Fracture Density”. Particle size is calculated as the inverse of Fracture Density and summed over the model to create a “Fragment Size Distribution” for the blast. The 3D volume processing nature of FDM makes it much more accurate than the previous standard Kuz-Ram model based on 2D curve fitting. A patent application for FDM has been prepared and submitted to the US Patent office. Also developed for Dyno Nobel is a blast heave (movement) prediction capability named GEM (Geologic Element Model). GEM is a discrete element computer program that predicts blasting induced rock movement during blasting. Blast movement is called “Heave” and is an important aspect of rock blasting that benefits from a predictive capability. GEM utilizes a new discrete element that represents broken rock particles with arcs and lines which is a very computationally efficient algorithm. GEM has been successfully exercised on cast blasting and mineral choke blasting. A patent application for GEM has also been prepared and submitted to the US Patent office.
In 2017, Dr. Preece was presented with a Distinguished Service Award from the International Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE) given to outstanding contributors in explosives engineering. Furthermore, he is the author of over 140 technical papers and journal articles, has contributed to several books and was appointed as the editor of the ISEE’s Blasting and Fragmentation Journal. In the coming years, Dr. Preece hopes to continue his exemplary work as a general manager at Dyno Nobel.
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