A Hybrid Approach to Pillar Design: Integrating Empirical, Strain Criterion, and Stress Inversion Concepts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/Abstract
Pillar design is a crucial aspect of underground mining engineering, it directly impacts the safety, stability, and overall effectiveness of the mining operation. This paper presents a pillar stability method based on the strain criterion and stress inversion concept, which complements the empirical pillar strength formulas. The formulae include parameters which can impact the stability of the pillars, e.g. weak layers, changes in stress orientations due to mining, orebody dip, mining layout complexity, and the influence of regional stabilizing pillars. The approach presented here does not advocate for the complete exclusion of the empirical method, instead it suggests using it as the initial step in the pillar design process. This should be followed by iterative numerical modelling to study pillar behaviour, define pillar stability and optimize the pillar design by considering site-specific and representative rock mass properties and criteria.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Kevin Byron Le Bron, Les J Gardner, Jean-Claude Van Zyl
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