Safety analysis of Sormeh underground mine to improve sublevel stoping stability

In underground mines,sublevel stoping is used among a variety of different methods for mining an orebody,which creates large underground openings.In this case,the stability of these openings is affected by a number of factors,including the geometrical characteristics of the rock and mining-induced stresses.In this study,a sensitivity analysis was conducted with the numerical,squat pillar,and Mathews stability methods using the Taguchi technique to properly understand the influence of geometric parameters and stress on stope stability according to Sormeh underground mine data.The results show a full factorial analysis is more reliable since stope stability is a complex process.Furthermore,the numerical results indicate that overburden stress has the most impact on stope stability,followed by stope height.However,the results obtained with Mathews and squat pillar methods show that stope height has the greatest impact,followed by overburden stress and span.It appears that these methods overestimate the impact of stope height.Therefore,it is highly recommended that Mathews and squat pillar methods should not be used in high stope that is divided with several sill pillars.Nonetheless,Mathews method cannot accurately predict how the sill pillar impacts the stope stability.In addition,numerical analysis shows that all geometric parameters affect the roof safety factor,whereas the sill pillar has no significant influence on the safety factor of the hanging wall,which is primarily determined by the stope height–span ratio.

Evaluation of the use of sublevel open stoping in the mining of moderately dipping medium-thick orebodies

The flow of blasted ore during mining of moderately dipping medium-thick orebodies is a challenge.Selecting a suitable mining system for such ore bodies is difficult.This paper proposes a diamond layout sublevel open stoping system using fan blastholes with backfilling to mine such orebodies.To evaluate the performance of system the relationships between ore recovery and stope footwall dip angle,footwall surface roughness,drawpoint spacing and production blast ring burden were investigated.An ore recovery data set from 81 laboratory physical model experiments was established from combinations of the listed factors.Various modules in a back propagation neural network structure were compared,and an optimal network structure identified.An ore recovery backpropagation neural network(BPNN)forecast model was developed.Using the model and sensitivity analysis of the factors affecting the proposed open stope mining system,the significance of each factor on ore recovery was studied.The study results were applied to a case study at the Shandong Gold Group Jiaojia Gold Mine.The results showed that the application of a BPNN and sensitivity analysis models for ore recovery prediction in the proposed mining system and field experimental results confirm that the suggested mining method is feasible.