Title: Stochastic evaluation of haulage drift unsatisfactory performance using random Monte-Carlo simulation

Authors: Wael Abdellah; Hani S. Mitri; Denis Thibodeau; Lindsay Moreau-Verlaan

Addresses: Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7, Canada ' Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7, Canada ' Vale Ltd, Sudbury, Ontario P0M 1N0, Canada ' Vale Ltd, Sudbury, Ontario P0M 1N0, Canada

Abstract: Mine haulage drifts are the primary access to the mining blocks of an ore body in a multi-level mining system of a tabular ore deposit. Drift instability could lead to serious consequences such as injuries, production delays and higher operational cost. In this paper, the haulage drift stability is evaluated on the basis of the primary rock support system comprising 1.8m resin grouted rebars in the drift walls and 2.1m long in the drift back. Three failure criteria adopted and compared are Mohr-Coulomb yield zones, elasto-plastic and linear elastic brittle shear failure with respect to lower and same-level mining and filling steps in the vicinity of the haulage drift. The Random Monte-Carlo (RMC) is used in conjunction with finite-difference FLAC for random assignment of model input parameters in the FLAC grid. The results are presented in terms of probability of instability and categorised with respect to failure condition and mining step.

Keywords: mine haulage drift; drift stability; numerical simulation; modelling; random Monte Carlo simulation; RMC simulation; yielding zone; brittle shear failure; mining; tabular ore deposits; instability probability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMME.2012.048000

International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2012 Vol.4 No.1, pp.63 - 87

Published online: 16 Jul 2012 *

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