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Rock Mechanics.pdf - Mining and Blasting

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MINING-INDUCED SURFACE SUBSIDENCE<br />

the slope of the ground surface;<br />

any prior surface mining;<br />

the placement of fill in a pre-existing or newly produced crater; <strong>and</strong><br />

nearby underground excavations.<br />

The extent of surface disturbance is defined by the angle of break or angle of subsidence<br />

which is the angle made with the horizontal at a section by a straight line<br />

drawn from the undercut level to the extremity of surface cracking or disturbance as<br />

shown in Figure 16.10. The complement of the angle of break is known as the angle<br />

of draw. The caved or subsided zone defined by the angle of break is a zone in which<br />

large-scale or macro-deformations occur. Outside this zone there is a zone within the<br />

overall zone of influence of the cave in which small-scale or micro-deformations occur<br />

(Figure 16.10). Although small compared with the deformations occurring within<br />

the caved or subsided zone, these deformations may be large enough to damage excavations<br />

<strong>and</strong> mine infrastructure located within the zone of influence. The rock within<br />

this zone could become highly or over-stressed by the redistribution of stresses that<br />

accompanies the development <strong>and</strong> upwards progression of the cave, <strong>and</strong> then become<br />

de-stressed (at least in the lateral direction towards the cave) as the cave develops fully.<br />

The limits of the zone of influence of a block cave are best estimated using a combination<br />

of monitoring, local experience <strong>and</strong> numerical modelling. Butcher (2002), as<br />

reported by Brown (2003), has suggested that the following steps be used in making<br />

these predictions:<br />

1. Project the perimeters of the orebody-country rock contact on all mining levels<br />

to the surface to establish the area that will be clearly destroyed by caving.<br />

2. Make a preliminary estimate of the angle of break using an empirical or experiential<br />

method such as that due to Laubscher (1994).<br />

3. Calibrate this estimate against observed angles of break in this or similar mines.<br />

4. Check the estimated angle of break using other methods of analysis appropriate<br />

to the likely failure mechanisms such as that developed by Hoek (1974) <strong>and</strong><br />

extended by Brown <strong>and</strong> Ferguson (1979) <strong>and</strong> Lupo (1997).<br />

5. Modify the current estimate of the angle of break to take account of local geological<br />

features such as faults, topography <strong>and</strong> the amount of broken material in<br />

the crater.<br />

6. Use numerical modelling (using the FLAC code, for example) to check the angle<br />

of break <strong>and</strong> to estimate the stresses <strong>and</strong> displacements induced in the rock mass<br />

around the caved zone (e.g. Karzulovic et al., 1999, Lupo, 1999).<br />

An approach such as this is used in making subsidence predictions at CODELCO-<br />

Chile’s block <strong>and</strong> panel caving copper mines (Karzulovic et al., 1999, Rojas et al.,<br />

2001). Figure 16.11 shows an aerial view of the horse-shoe shaped crater produced at<br />

the EL Teniente Mine. The geometrical parameters used by Karzulovic et al. (1999)<br />

in their subsidence analyses for El Teniente are defined in Figure 16.12. Note that they<br />

differ in some respects from the general definitions given in Figure 16.10. A chart<br />

showing the variation of the angle of break, , with height above the crater floor, H, for<br />

theTen4–Regimiento Sector is shown in Figure 16.13. The angle of break is higher<br />

for the stronger Braden breccia than for the other rocks, <strong>and</strong> decreases markedly with<br />

increasing height above the crater floor. Rojas et al. (2001) give a similar chart for<br />

the El Teniente Sur <strong>and</strong> Esmeralda Sectors.<br />

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