Advanced rock mechanics

Stope stability in an open stoping mine

Ali Hadji Beyglou

December 2011

Problem Description
A tabular orebody is to be mined, the planned mining method to be used is stope mining. The mine is going to be excavated upwards in each step and pillars will be left in the orebody for stability purposes. Figure 1 shows the shape and dimensions of the orebody. The mechanical properties of the existing rocks are also mentioned in table 1. The modeling procedure has been done using FLAC2D software. As shown in figure 2 the model grid is constructed in a way that the mesh becomes finer near the excavation boundary; but the grids near the outer boundary are coarser because the effect of excavation and hence the required accuracy is lower in that area.. The outer boundary has been assumed far from the orebody so it does not have any effect on the results. The upper boundary represents the ground surface so it is set to be free, but the left and right boundaries are fixed in X direction, the lower boundary is fixed in Y direction, so the model resembles the real conditions. It should be mentioned that the hanging wall and orebody are modeled using Mohr-Coulomb criterion, but the footwall is foliated so it is modeled with Ubiquitous mode. Current report includes the stability analysis of the pillars in different conditions and steps; a sensitivity analysis is also included to show the most critical parameter affecting the stability.

Figur 1: Shape and dimensions of the orebody

Figur 2: Mesh setup

Tabell 1: Properties of rocks

keep the excavating process similar to reality and avoid any shocks on the model. Footwall
Strongly foliated

Hanging wall Condition Density Youngs modulus(GPa) Poissons ratio Friction angel Cohesion(MPa) Tensile (MPa) Dilation angel Foliation dip Friction of foliation Coh. of foliation Tensile of foliation
Sparsely fractured

Orebody
Sparsely fractured

Task 1
Running the model in 10 different stages to excavate the stopes leads to a model similar to reality. Figure 3 shows the overall stress state after the last stage, as expected, the stress concentration is on the pillars, especially the corners. The deformations are also shown in figures 4 and 5, the walls of the stopes deform inwards and since the footwall in strongly foliated and weaker, its deformation is much bigger. In this case the pillars are thick enough to carry the load and they are stable, the factor of safety has also been calculated and equals 2.9 which shows an acceptable stability condition. However the rock around the stope has entered plastic mode, figure 6 shows the plasticity of the model; as predicted, the hanging and foot wall have tension on the stope surface, the foliation surfaces have also slipped in some places, the shear failure is also observed in the pillars. As the excavating proceeded the stresses in the pillars rised up; although the stopes are stable the last stage is the most critical stage, as the pillar becomes thinner the stress concentration becomes higher until the point that the pillar cannot carry the load, so the load will be transferred to the other pillar. This effect will be discussed in Task 3 which an analysis on critical size of the pillars is done.

2700 38 0.26 52 8.2MPa 2.5MPa 8 -

3400 74 0.25 41 4.4 1.5 7 -

2600 8.2 0.28 35 2.8 1.5 10 70 35 0.5 MPa 0.5 MPa

In-situ stresses are applied to the model based on the stress relations obtained from measurements: H=4.5+0.064z h=2.3+0.039z v=0.0265z The model has been excavated step by step to simulate the real mining procedure, the virgin state of stress has been simulated by running the model in elastic mode without any excavation; each step is excavated using the FISH function ZONK.FIS, this function applies virtual forces on the boundaries of the step to be excavated and reduces the force gradually to

Figur 3: sigma 1 distribution after the last stage

Figur 4: x-displacement after 10 stages

Figur 6: plasticity indication after 10 stages

Figur 5: x-displacement history during 10 stages

Task 2
In this task the stability of the crown pillar in the 5th stage will be assessed. The critical stage is the 5th stage, in which the stope gets close to the surface, but as shown in figure 7, the stresses in the crown are not so high, thats because of the fact that the horizontal stresses get lower close to the surface, the amount of horizontal stresses are not as high as to be considered a danger to the stability of the crown. The only problem which might arise in this case is that no external load is considered on the ground surface on top of the crown pillar. In current conditions the crown pillar is thick enough and have a high strength properties and the horizontal stresses still exist near the surface, so the pillar deforms and we can observe a small heaving on the ground, this heaving is endured in this case but as we will see in task 3, if the pillar becomes thinner than a certain height it will fail in tension and it will carry no more load. The effect of loads on ground surface is not analyzed here. Figure 7 shows the deformation contours of the upper stope after excavation of 5 stages, it shows that as a result of low stress close to the ground the deformations get bigger with depth, we can also see in figure 8 that the pillar is carrying some load, but the load is not as big as its failure. This can be checked in the stress profile along the crown pillar(figure 9), the amount of stress increases in each step and in 5th step no reduction in carried load is observed, so the pillar is stable and carrying the horizontal loads. The plasticity indication of this stage is shown in figure 10, which shows that the crown has yielded and the ground surface has yielded in tension, also slides on the foliation planes have taken place.

Figur 7: x-displacement contour after 5 stages

Figur 8: sigma 1 around the crown pillar after 5 stages

Task 3

In current design the sill pillar is the most critical part, the stability of the sill pillar is analyzed through the stress carried by it, by comparing the stress profiles along the sill pillar height, we can see that the stress in the pillar is increased in each stage. As shown in figure 11the stress distribution around the sill pillar is mostly concentrated on the corners, it is also shown in figure 12 that the sill pillar is carrying most of the load although it has yielded. The plasticity indication of the pillar is shown in figure 13, which indicates that the whole pillar is yielded and also a lot of slides have happened along foliation planes in the footwall.
Figur 9: stress profile along the crown pillar after 5 stages

As it is the most critical element in this stope, it should be considered that the last stage of mining is important in stability of the sill pillar, the mining should be done carefully to avoid damage to the pillar, if the excavation applies a shock to the pillar the stability will be endangered.

Figur 10: plasticity indication after 5 stages

Figur 11: sigma 1 around the sill pillar

Figur 13: Plasticity around the sill pillar after the last stage

Figur 12: stress p rofile along the sill p illar on the last stage

In this stage we will try smaller pillars and see the effect on the system. First of all we reduce the height of the crown pillar in 5 meters steps, figure 14 shows the stress profile along the pillar, as seen in the figure, the stress increases when the pillar gets thinner(from 15m to 10m), meaning that it still is stable and carries the load, but as soon as it gets thinner(5meters) it does not carry any more load and the other pillar carries its load, it means that it cannot carry the load and has failed. So the crown pillar can be made thinner, like 10 meters instead of 15 meters, but it should not be thinner because it will fail.

This effect is also shown in figure 15, as seen, the pillar does not carry load after it becomes too thin.

Figur 14: stress profile along the crown pillar with different pillar widths Figur 15: stress distribution in crown pillar with 15 and 5 meters height

The same procedure has been done for the sill pillar, but the height has been reduced in 1-meter steps to see the differences. Figure 16 shows the stress profile along the sill pillar in different pillar heights, it is obvious that the pillar carries less load when it becomes thinner and this leads to the conclusion that it should not be thinner than 5 meters, although it is still stable, but after a certain point its existence will not have a significant effect on the stope stability.

Task 4
Since the model is huge and the running time is quite high, the cohesion and tensile strength of the orebody have been lowered and raised only once for the sensitivity analysis, each of them have been raised up by 25% and also lowered by 25% to provide a simple sensitivity analysis. The results are shown in table 2, the maximum principal stress and maximum deformation have been considered in the sensitivity analysis.

Tabell 2: Primary sensitivity analysis data

percentage change Cohesion Tensile -25% 0% +25% -25% 0% 25%

maximum stress -8,4 -8,9 8,28 -9,1 -8,9 -8,5

% change -5,6 0% -6,96 2,25 0 -4,49

Maximum xdisplacement -0,17 0,174 -0,172 -0,162 0,174 -0,165

% change -2,29 0% -1,15 -6,89 0 -5,17

Figur 16: stress profile along sill pillar with different heights

ProperJes vs. sigma 1

percentage change in properJes 4 2 0 -20% -2 -4 -6 -8 percentage change in maximum stress 0% 20% 40% Cohesion Tensile

-40%

Figures 17 and 18 show the sensitivity of the stress and deformation to changes in cohesion and tensile strength, the deformation and principal stress are measured along the sill pillar which is the critical element, diagrams above show the sensitivity of this element to the properties, as discussed in task 3, a small decrease in the height of sill pillar results in failure, these diagrams also show that the stress becomes lower if cohesion lowers, meaning that the pillar does not work as an stability element and the stresses are carried by the other pillar. The diagrams dont show how exactly our results are sensitive, in order to do that we need to do another analysis with lower changing percentage to see the trend before failure, the current diagrams only show that our sensitivity is lower than 25%, so the measurements should be quite accurate, or else we should increase the height of the sill pillar. But the important point in sensitivity of results is that cohesion and tensile strength DO NOT govern the overall stability of the pillar, the strength of pillars are governed by the uniaxial compressive strength and the dimension of the pillar (height/width ratio), so the main sensitivity analysis should be done in accordance of the compressive strength of the orebody. Since the uniaxial compressive strength together with GSI index give us the empirical Youngs modulus of the rock mass, the sensitivity analysis has been done through changing the Youngs modulus which indicates the changes in c in the rock mass. Table 3 shows the values changed in the model, it should be mentioned that in this case since the pillar is more sensitive to changes, the Youngs modulus have been changed in three 10% changing steps.

Figur 17: sensitivity of maximum principal stress within the pillar to cohesion and tensile strength

ProperJes vs. deformaJon

percentage change in properJes 0 -30% -20% -10% -1 0% -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 percentage change in deformaJon Cohesion Tensile 10% 20% 30%

Figur 18: sensitivity of maximum deformation to cohesion and tensile strength

Percentage change in E

Table 3: Main sensitivity analysis data

E vs sigma 1
0.00 -20 -10 -2.00 -4.00 -6.00 0 10 20 30

E(GPa) 59.2 66.6 74 88.8

% change -20 -10 0 20

Stress 8.4 8.8 8.97 8.92

% change -6.35 -1.90 0.00 -0.56

Deformation 0.19 0.173 0.172 0.171

% change 10.47 0.58 0.00 -0.58

-30

The results are shown in figures 19 and 20. As seen, increasing E does not have much effect on maximum principal stress because the amount of stress applies by surrounding does not change, but decreasing E leads to failure of the pillar and large deformations. Until 10% decreasing the youngs modulus leads to stress redistribution in the pillar, but between 10% and 20% the pillar fails and the deformations rise rapidly.

-8.00 percentage change in sigma 1

Figure 19: Sensitivity of Sigma 1 to changes in Youngs modulus

E percentage change in deformaJon vs. DeformaJon

12.00 10.00 8.00 percentage change in E 6.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 -20 -10 -2.00 0 10 20 30

-30

Figure 20: Sensitivity of deformations to changes in Youngs modulus

Task 5
The effect of backfilling on the stopes are not modeled, but the engineering knowledge leads us to the conclusion that backfilling with proper material helps the stability of the mine, in a way that after the second stage has been excavated, the first stage stope will be backfilled with a material that is properly designed for the conditions (e.g. hydraulic fill), this backfilled material will act as a thick pillar. The backfilled space will help the stress trajectories to be less distorted and stress concentration around the excavation will be less. Using backfill results in a mine that the stress conditions are barely changed around it before and after excavation, although in this case the pillars are stable and there is no need for backfilling. The benefits of backfilling are quite tempting for all engineers, but the cost of it leads us to a struggle toward avoiding backfilling as long as the loss of pillar ores and stability are acceptable. In the current case, the backfill can be applied after 2 or three stages in each stope, in other words the first stage will be backfilled when the second or third stage is excavated, in this way the working platform will be more useable and the stresses are acceptable in the backfilling stage. Finally it should be mentioned that backfilling is a common method in underground mining, but in this case the backfill is not required for this depth, but should be considered if the mine is planned to be excavated to much higher depth, in higher depth horizontal stresses increase extremely and the need for strong pillars arise, in that case backfilling with a cheap and properly designed material will add a little cost, but it adds the volume of pillars in the ore to the benefits which is much more favorable.