Determination of bench, dump and road sliding wedge technological parameters

Abstract

Mine surveying in mining operations is of particular importance, since all technological processes of the full life cycle of a mining enterprise and, ultimately, its competitiveness depend on the surveying quality, efficiency and reliability. Organizations independently determine the structure of mine surveying services, taking into account the methods applied and the scale of mining. To ensure safe open-pit mining of minerals, it is necessary to permanently assess and monitor the pit bench and wall rock mass condition. Misjudgement of rock physical and mechanical properties, non-observance of the minerals mining and transportation process cycle, changes in climatic conditions and other problems lead to loss of stability of rocks in all parts of an open pit, including in the areas of ore production and mining and transport equipment operation. The existing practice shows that the effectiveness of an open pit wall and bench stability calculation can be achieved using a technique that should take into account the slope deformation and failure mechanism, as well as the nature of the stress-strain state of the open pit rock mass. The studies presented in the paper are based on comparative analysis of the sliding wedge parameters for benches, dumps and roads at open pits using analytical and graphical software packages, and taking into account the static load produced by dump trucks. The study findings allow to establish that: determination of the bench slope stability and the sliding wedge width, performed by the analytical method, gives higher accuracy results than those obtained by the graphical method; the bench slope stability and the sliding wedge width depend not only on the rock physical and mechanical condition, but also on the bench height, the dump truck (plus its freight load) weight per 1 linear meter of the placement area, the distance from the slope edge and other factors; the rock mass is stable and not subject to landslide phenomena for as long as the sum of the holding forces is greater than or equal to the sum of the shearing forces; when using large-sized transport equipment of nonstandard weight in open-pit mining, it is necessary to calculate the safe width of the sliding wedges, taking into account the loads on them (per 1 linear meter), the values of which can be 1.5–2.0 times higher than those calculated for the circular-cylindrical sliding surface.