Investigation and Stability Assessment of Three Sill Pillar Recovery Schemes in a Hard Rock Mine

Huawei Xu, Derek B. Apel, Jun Wang, Chong Wei and Krzysztof Skrzypkowski
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Huawei Xu: School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Derek B. Apel: School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Jun Wang: School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Chong Wei: School of Mining and Petroleum Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada
Krzysztof Skrzypkowski: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Resource Management, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: In Canada, many mines have adopted the sublevel stoping method, such a blasthole stoping (BHS), to extract steeply deposited minerals. Sill pillars are usually kept in place in this mining method to support the weight of the overburden in underground mining. To prolong the mine’s life, sill pillars will be recovered, and sill pillar recovery could cause failures, fatality, and equipment loss in the stopes. In this paper, three sill pillar recovery schemes—SBS, SS1, and SS2—were proposed and conducted to assess the feasibility of recovering two sill pillars in a hard rock mine by developing a full-sized three-dimensional (3D) analysis model employing the finite element method (FEM). The numerical model was calibrated by comparing the model computed ground settlement with the in situ monitored ground settlement data. The rockburst tendency of the stope accesses caused by the sill pillar recovery was assessed by employing the tangential stress (Ts) criterion and burst potential index (BPI) criterion. All three proposed sill pillar recovery schemes were feasible and safe to recover the sill pillars in this hard rock mine, and the scheme SBS was the optimum one among the three schemes.

Keywords: hard rock mine; sill pillar recovery; upper bench level; ground settlement; tangential stress criteria; burst potential index (BPI) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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