Development and application of a reliability-based approach to slope design acceptance criteria at the Bingham Canyon Mine

Gaida, Megan; Cambio, Domenica; Robotham, Martyn; Pere, Verne

doi:10.36487/acg_repo/2135_02

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Agencies may not openly share these historical records of failure for understandable reasons, but they do exist. One example of this is in open pit mining (e.g., Bingham Canyon mine; Gaida et al., 2021). This is precisely why we designed our platform to be one complete package—with the ability to accommodate the changing conditions that may intensify certain landslide triggers (e.g., climate change that may lead to increased intensity, duration, and frequency of rainfall (Johnston et al., 2021; Justice, 2020), earthquakes (Masih, 2018, etc.).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pinpointing Early Signs of Impending Slope Failures From Space

et al. 2022

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A promised potential of spaceborne interferometric synthetic aperture radars (InSAR) is a capability for regularly monitoring ground deformation with millimeter accuracy, for timely forecasting of impending natural hazards such as landslides. The main limitation in InSAR being actually capable of unleashing this potential for hazard prediction is that key precursory ground displacements are, in the majority of cases, a very small subset of the entire big data set provided by the method over large regions. Consequently, pinpointing a single impending failure may become very difficult or impossible. We develop a data‐driven framework that can handle such imbalanced spatiotemporal data based on the concept of outlying aspects mining, to find a subset of features out of a collection of potential features, which best distinguishes the landslide source area from the others. We show that the identified feature subspace can be used to find anomalous areas across multiple spatial scales, such that Sentinel‐1 satellite monitoring points which persistently lie in these areas can accurately detect the location of the Xinmo landslide (China) almost 1 year in advance—without false alarms. In a second case study, we identify the area affected by rockfalls on Stromboli volcano, a task that is generally infeasible with traditional methods applied to InSAR data. With continuing improvements in the spatial and temporal resolution from the new generation of satellites, such as Sentinel‐1, this approach opens the door to reliable and early prediction of failure over a broad range of slope instabilities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pinpointing Early Signs of Impending Slope Failures From Space

et al. 2022

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“…As an example, Gaida et al (2021) carried out a thorough evaluation of the components of the slope design process, identifying a high reliability on the geotechnical model. This allowed the design of an alternative targeting a lower FoS, highlighting the benefit-cost reward.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic pit slope stability analysis targeting a reliability-based design acceptance criteria: a parametric study

Velarde,

Macciotta

2023

SSIM 2023: Third International Slope Stability in Mining Conference

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Design of open pit slopes is a decision-making process which aims to maximise the ore recovery while minimising the excavation volumes. The current practice of designing open pit slopes adopts the widely accepted Guidelines for Open Pit Slope Design by Read & Stacey (2009). An optimum design should satisfy a design acceptance criteria (DAC). However, designing open pit slopes is a complex process that involves inherent risks and uncertainties. As a result, reliability analyses are becoming increasingly important for performance-based slope designs. In a reliability approach, the amount of information on the slope materials and behaviour would reflect the reliability of a slope design. This paper presents a parametric study defined by the uncertainties of the rock mass strength properties and the slope geometric configurations at three different design reliability levels targeting a reliability-based DAC (RBDAC). The reliability assessment is performed using probabilistic analysis adopting the two-dimensional limit equilibrium method and Monte Carlo simulations. The input variables for the rock mass strength are defined through probability density functions (PDF) that capture the natural variability, while the input variables of geological structures are defined through kinematic assessments.The PDFs of the rock mass strength properties were modelled based on the generalised Hoek-Brown criterion using the mean, coefficient of variation (COV) and dependence between quantitative properties of the criterion. Results show that most of the resultant pairs of Factor of Safety (FoS) and probability of failure and associated COV of the resulting FoS (COVFoS) are consistent with the RBDAC. Based on this, a redesign is proposed showing the applicability of the RBDAC and comparing it to the current DAC. This approach has significant implications for slope optimisation or mitigation plans for future pushbacks in case of instabilities.

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“…The stability of slopes in open-pit mines is extremely important considering the safety, economic, and environmental aspects [1,2], which include a series of discrete stochastic processes and relatively frequent changes in the internal and external environment [3,4]. The influence of unstable ground in the slope zone of the surface mine must not be ignored because it can lead to temporary or permanent closure of the mine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%