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Rock Mechanics.pdf - Mining and Blasting

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Figure 3.15 Suggested scanline locations<br />

along an exploration cross cut<br />

intersecting two orebodies in steeply<br />

dipping sedimentary strata.<br />

COLLECTING STRUCTURAL DATA<br />

Size bias – the larger the scale of a discontinuity, the more likely it is to be sampled<br />

by a given drill core, scanline or mapping window.<br />

Truncation bias – a truncation or size cut-off is usually used in scanline or window<br />

mapping. For example, fractures that are less than 50 mm in length may be<br />

ignored. Although using such a small cut-off will usually have little effect on<br />

the overall discontinuity statistics, if a comprehensive, rigorous analysis is<br />

undertaken with the aim of fully describing the distribution of discontinuity<br />

sizes then the truncation size cut-off must be taken into account. It has been<br />

found that the size cut-off can have a particular influence on estimates of<br />

fragmentation size distributions (Villaescusa, 1991).<br />

Censoring bias – this bias is associated with the artificial boundaries imposed<br />

when carrying out a rock mass characterisation exercise. Typically, in underground<br />

mines, the most limiting boundary is the height of the drives in which<br />

mapping is carried out. The restriction in height of the mapping window limits<br />

the trace lengths that can be observed. Censored trace lengths provide lower<br />

bound estimates of the true trace lengths.<br />

Generally there will be an orientation bias in the observed spacings between discontinuities<br />

in a particular set because the scanline will not be perpendicular to the<br />

discontinuity traces. If, as shown in Figure 3.13, the apparent spacing between two discontinuities<br />

in a set is xi <strong>and</strong> the acute angle between the normal to the discontinuities<br />

<strong>and</strong> the scanline is , the true spacing in the plane of the face, xi0, can be calculated<br />

from<br />

xi0 = xi cos (3.6)<br />

Only when = 0 ◦ , is the true spacing in the plane of the face measured directly.<br />

In the extreme case when the discontinuity <strong>and</strong> scanline are parallel ( = 90 ◦ ), no<br />

intersection will be observed. It is necessary, therefore, that scanline surveys of a face<br />

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