Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design in Weak Rocks

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Mine Planning ◽  
Rock Slope Stability ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Weak Rock ◽  
Primary Control ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Open Pit Mines ◽  
Weak Rocks ◽  
Slope Design

Weak rocks encountered in open pit mines cover a wide variety of materials, with properties ranging between soil and rock. As such, they can provide a significant challenge for the slope designer. For these materials, the mass strength can be the primary control in the design of the pit slopes, although structures can also play an important role. Because of the typically weak nature of the materials, groundwater and surface water can also have a controlling influence on stability. Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design in Weak Rocks is a companion to Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design, which was published in 2009 and dealt primarily with strong rocks. Both books were commissioned under the Large Open Pit (LOP) project, which is sponsored by major mining companies. These books provide summaries of the current state of practice for the design, implementation and assessment of slopes in open pits, with a view to meeting the requirements of safety, as well as the recovery of anticipated ore reserves. This book, which follows the general cycle of the slope design process for open pits, contains 12 chapters. These chapters were compiled and written by industry experts and contain a large number of case histories. The initial chapters address field data collection, the critical aspects of determining the strength of weak rocks, the role of groundwater in weak rock slope stability and slope design considerations, which can differ somewhat from those applied to strong rock. The subsequent chapters address the principal weak rock types that are encountered in open pit mines, including cemented colluvial sediments, weak sedimentary mudstone rocks, soft coals and chalk, weak limestone, saprolite, soft iron ores and other leached rocks, and hydrothermally altered rocks. A final chapter deals with design implementation aspects, including mine planning, monitoring, surface water control and closure of weak rock slopes. As with the other books in this series, Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design in Weak Rocks provides guidance to practitioners involved in the design and implementation of open pit slopes, particularly geotechnical engineers, mining engineers, geologists and other personnel working at operating mines.

Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Read ◽  
Peter Stacey
Keyword(s):  
Slope Stability ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Rock Slope ◽  
Rock Slope Stability ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Financial Return ◽  
Open Pit Mines ◽  
Management Procedures ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Slope Design

Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design is a comprehensive account of the open pit slope design process. Created as an outcome of the Large Open Pit (LOP) project, an international research and technology transfer project on rock slope stability in open pit mines, this book provides an up-to-date compendium of knowledge of the slope design processes that should be followed and the tools that are available to aid slope design practitioners. This book links innovative mining geomechanics research into the strength of closely jointed rock masses with the most recent advances in numerical modelling, creating more effective ways for predicting rock slope stability and reliability in open pit mines. It sets out the key elements of slope design, the required levels of effort and the acceptance criteria that are needed to satisfy best practice with respect to pit slope investigation, design, implementation and performance monitoring. Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design comprises 14 chapters that directly follow the life of mine sequence from project commencement through to closure. It includes: information on gathering all of the field data that is required to create a 3D model of the geotechnical conditions at a mine site; how data is collated and used to design the walls of the open pit; how the design is implemented; up-to-date procedures for wall control and performance assessment, including limits blasting, scaling, slope support and slope monitoring; and how formal risk management procedures can be applied to each stage of the process. This book will assist in meeting stakeholder requirements for pit slopes that are stable, in regards to safety, ore recovery and financial return, for the required life of the mine.

Dewatering optimization using a groundwater flow model at the Whitewood open-pit coal mine, Alberta

1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-693
Author(s):  
S. M. Sumer ◽  
J. J. Elton ◽  
J. A. Tapics
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Open Pit Mining ◽  
Optimum Number ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Coal Quality ◽  
Coal Recovery ◽  
Pumping Wells ◽  
Cost Effective Method

By 1980, coal production and coal recovery at the Whitewood mine, Alberta, were unacceptably low as a result of poor groundwater and surface water control at the mine. A feasibility study conducted to determine the most cost-effective method to reduce groundwater inflows into the mine pit and reduce pore-water pressures in the mine walls concluded that a vertical well dewatering system, which would be located behind the highwall, was the most suitable. A finite difference computer model was constructed and successfully applied to design the dewatering system. The flexibility and ease of application of the model made it possible to determine the optimum number, production schedules, and locations of the dewatering wells, in conjunction with evolving mine plans. The implementation of the dewatering well program and improvements in surface water and in-pit drainage have resulted in increased coal recovery, a significant decrease in mine wall failures, and improved coal quality. Key words: dewatering, modelling, groundwater, open-pit mining, hydrogeology, pumping wells, optimization, monitoring, coal recovery.

scholarly journals Methodology for a Dump Design Optimization in Large-Scale Open Pit Mines

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Puell Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Mine Planning ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Open Pit Mines ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Mining Project ◽  
Waste Rock Dump ◽  
Mine Dump

Dump design and scheduling are critical elements to effective mine planning, especially if several of them are required in large-scale open pit mines. Infrastructure capital and transportation costs are considerable from an early stage in the mining project, and through the life-of-mine as these dumps gradually become immense structures. Delivered mining rates, as well as certain spatial and physical constraints, provide a set of parameters of mathematical and economic relationship that creates opportunities for modelling and thus facilitates the measuring and optimization of ultimate dump design by using programming and empirical techniques while achieving economic objectives. This paper presents a methodology to model and optimize the design of a mine dump by minimizing the total haulage costs. The proposed methodology consists on: (i) Formulation of a dump model based on a system of equations relying on multiple relevant parameters; (ii) Solves by minimizing the total cost using linear programming and determines a ‘preliminary’ dump design; (iii) Through a series of iterations, modifies the ‘preliminary’ footprint by projecting it to the topography and creates the ultimate dump design. Finally, an example application for a waste rock dump illustrates this methodology.

scholarly journals Hydrogeological Decision Analysis : Sump Optimization at an Open Pit Mine

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aris Rinaldi
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Open Pit Mine ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Open Pit Mines ◽  
Drainage Channels ◽  
Pit Design

ABSTRACT Water is an aspect that is often becoming a problem in the mining industry. In a system of open pit mine, the water that comes from surface water and groundwater is collected into a temporary collecting pond which is commonly referred to as sump. This paper analyzes a case study of optimization of sump at an open pit coal mine in South Borneo.The design of sump often ignores the role of groundwater. It has quite an impact on the efficiency of the design of the sump and the number of pumps used during the dewatering process. The process of pumping on the open pit system considers the total amount of water that runs into the pond of water, not only surface water alone. Moreover, the interconnected drainage channels and culverts also play a role in the optimization of the open pit sump system.Analysis of hydrogeological decision has an enormous role in the sump optimization, including sump design, pump usage, and the total number of culverts on the system so that the open mine pit design, which has good technical and economic value, can be obtained.Keywords: mines hydrogeology, open pit mines, groundwater.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document