In Kaiyang Phosphorus Mine, serious environmental and safety problems are caused by large scale mining activities in the past 40 years. These problems include mining subsidence, low recovery ratio, too much dead ore in pillars, and pollution of phosphorus gypsum. Mining subsidence falls into four categories: curved ground and mesa, ground cracks and collapse hole, spalling and eboulement, slope slide and creeping. Measures to treat the mining subsidence were put forward: finding out and managing abandoned stopes, optimizing mining method (cut and fill mining method), selecting proper backfilling materials (phosphogypsum mixtures), avoiding disorder mining operation, and treating highway slopes. These investigations and engineering treatment methods are believed to be able to contribute to the safety extraction of ore and sustainable development in Kaiyang Phosphorus Mine.

The response and energy dissipation of rock under stochastic stress waves were analyzed based on dynamic fracture criterion of brittle materials integrating with Fourier transform methods of spectral analysis. When the stochastic stress waves transmit through rocks, the frequency and energy ratio of harmonic components were calculated by analytical and discrete analysis methods. The stress waves in shale, malmstone and liparite were taken as examples to illustrate the proposed analysis methods. The results show the harder the rock, the less absorption of energy, the more the useless elastic waves transmitting through rock, and the narrower the cutoff frequency to fracture rock. When the whole stress energy doubles either by doubling the duration time or by increasing the amplitude of stress wave, ratio of the energy of elastic waves transmitting through rock to the whole stress energy (i.e. energy dissipation ratio) is decreased to 10%−15%. When doubling the duration time, the cutoff frequency to fracture rock remains constant. However, with the increase of the amplitude of stress wave, the cutoff frequency increases accordingly.

Ground crack and subsidence were investigated in Kaiyang Phosphorus Mine as an example. Contribution factors to cause ground crack and mining subsidence were studied, including mining method, mining depth and ore thickness and stope size, dip angle of orebody, geological structure, nature of overburden and water contents, and roof supports, etc. Countermeasures against cracks and subsidence were put forward. The uniaxial compressive strength of compounded phosphorus gypsum after 28 d of curing period was tested to be more than 1 MPa. Phosphorus gypsum can be used as materials for the backfill of stope. By comparison and numerical simulation, cut and fill mining method with middle-deep drilling holes and ore transportation by blasting force was selected as the optimum mining method in Kaiyang Phosphorus Mine.

A new algorithm using orthogonal polynomials and sample moments was presented for estimating probability curves directly from experimental or field data of rock variables. The moments estimated directly from a sample of observed values of a random variable could be conventional moments (moments about the origin or central moments) and probability-weighted moments (PWMs). Probability curves derived from orthogonal polynomials and conventional moments are probability density functions (PI)F), and probability curves derived from orthogonal polynomials and PWMs are inverse cumulative density functions (CDF) of random variables. The proposed approach is verified by two most commonly-used theoretical standard distributions: normal and exponential distribution. Exam pies from observed data of uniaxial compressive strength of a rock and concrete strength data are presented for illustrative purposes. The results show that probability curves of rock variable can be accurately derived from orthogonal polynomials and sample moments. Orthogonal polynomials and PWMs enable more secure inferences to be made from relatively small samples about an underlying probability curve.

The attrition rate of a TBM cutter connects with the economic benefits of the TBM application and digging efficiency. The main influence factor of the attrition rate of the TBM cutter is rock abrastivity. The rock abrastivity is in contact with the physical and mechanical indexes of rock and rock attributes. The relationship between the rock abrastivity and the physical and mechanical indexes of rock is studied by experiments and mathematical statistics. The experimental samples are collected in the Qingdao subway tunnel and done rock mechanics room experimentation and rock abrastivity experimentation separately in the lab Based on calculation and analyses of the test data. We obtain a mathematic model describing the relationship between rock abrastivity and physical and mechanical indexes of rock and summarize and interpret the correlativity between them.