Study on Stability Prediction of Pillars Based on Bieniawski Pillar Strength Formula: a Case of a Phosphate Mine

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 4033-4044
Author(s):  
Qingyang Ren ◽  
Feifei Wang ◽  
Bin Chen ◽  
Mengyuan Zhao ◽  
Zijian Peng ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
B.P. Watson ◽  
W. Theron ◽  
N. Fernandes ◽  
W.O. Kekana ◽  
M.P. Mahlangu ◽  
...  

The research described in this paper was done to confirm the Upper Group 2 (UG2) PlatMine peak pillar strength formula (Watson et al., 2007), which was determined from a back-analysis of failed and unfailed pillars. Underground measurements were made on a stable pillar that was loaded by firstly reducing it's length and then by mining the surrounding pillars until pillar failure took place. The pillar was instrumented with suitably positioned strain cells and closure meters, which allowed both the average pillar stress and strain to be determined. The paper describes the methodology applied to identify a suitable position for the instrumentation, as well as the results. A stress/strain curve is presented for a UG2 pillar with a w/h ratio of 2.0, at Booysendal Platinum Mine. The measured pillar strength was similar to the predicted strength using the PlatMine pillar strength formula for UG2 pillars. The PlatMine formula has been successfully implemented on Booysendal Platinum Mine, and about 3 670 pillars have been cut without a single failure. An additional revenue of US$1.3 billion was calculated for the 25-year life of the mine as a direct result of the improved pillar design, given the January 2020 platinum group metals basket price. An extended life of mine and better mining efficiencies will also be realized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-24
Author(s):  
Ratih Hardini Kusuma Putri

In underground coal mines, coal pillars play a major rule in sustaining the weight of the overburden and protecting the stability of the entries and crosscut during mine development and production, allowing the miners to safely extract the coal¹. The determination of a coal pillar size is adjusted to the expected load and strength of the coal seam. It needs to consider several factors such as pillar load (stress within the pillar), pillar strength, and safety factors. In this determination, an analysis will be conducted using five similar coal pillar strengths including; Obert-Duvall Equation (1967), Holland Equation (1964), Holland-Gaddy Equation (1956), Salamon-Munro Equation (1967), and Bieniawski (1983). Using AirLaya seam as an example, we can combine the results of various equations. The coal used in the Airlaya research area has a value of k = 425.75, thus the strength of Airlaya insitu seam coal is estimated to be 161,607 Psi.


Author(s):  
B.P. Watson ◽  
R.A. Lamos ◽  
D.P. Roberts

The Upper Group 2 (UG2) chromitite reef is a shallow-dipping stratiform tabular orebody in the South African Bushveld Complex, which strikes for hundreds of kilometres. Mining is extensive, with depths ranging from close-to-surface to 2 500 m. Pillars are widely used to support the open stopes and bords. Little work has been done in the past to determine the strength of pillars on the UG2 Reef and design was done using formulae developed for other hard-rock mines. This has led to oversized pillars with consequent sterilization of ore. In this paper we describe a back-analysis of stable and failed UG2 pillars on the Bushveld platinum mines, and provides a strength formula for UG2 pillars. The formula may be used cautiously on all Bushveld platinum mines with similar geotechnical, geometrical, and geomechanical conditions to the pillars in the database.


1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuang-Hua Chang ◽  
Xiaoming Yu ◽  
Kyung Choi

Minerals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 423
Author(s):  
Chunde Ma ◽  
Jiaqing Xu ◽  
Guanshuang Tan ◽  
Weibin Xie ◽  
Zhihai Lv

Red shale is widely distributed among the deep mine areas of Kaiyang Phosphate Mine, which is the biggest underground phosphate mine of China. Because of the effect of various factors, such as high stress, ground water and so on, trackless transport roadways in deep mine areas were difficult to effectively support for a long time by using traditional supporting design methods. To deal with this problem, some innovative works were carried out in this paper. First, mineral composition and microstructure, anisotropic, hydraulic mechanical properties and other mechanical parameters of red shale were tested in a laboratory to reveal its deformation and failure characteristics from the aspect of lithology. Then, some numerical simulation about the failure process of the roadways in layered red shale strata was implemented to investigate the change regulation of stress and strain in the surrounding rock, according to the real rock mechanical parameters and in-situ stress data. Therefore, based on the composite failure law and existing support problems of red shale roadways, some effective methods and techniques were adopted, especially a kind of new wave-type bolt that was used to relieve rock expansion and plastic energy to prevent concentration of stress and excess deformation. The field experiment shows the superiorities in new techniques have been verified and successfully applied to safeguard roadway stability.


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