Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

As mining progresses to deeper grounds, mining-induced rock failure, seismicity and rockburst problems increase significantly. As an important line of defense, ground control measures and burst-resistant rock support are used to prevent or minimize damage to excavations and therefore enhance workplace safety. Current approaches in rockburst support design for estimating the depth of failure, bulking factor, and rock ejection velocity are overly simplistic as they were developed on limited data. This may induce large errors in rock support design. In addition, no guidelines and design tools exist for use by design engineers. Hence, an integrated research program is proposed to overcome these deficiencies in an effort to improve rockburst support design for deep mines.The objectives of the the project are to: (1) produce a design guidebook for practicing mining engineers; (2) transfer knowledge that resides in the literature into a practical design tool; (3) conduct further research to first improve our understanding of major factors affecting the depth of failure around underground excavations as mining induces static and dynamic stress changes, and second to improve our understanding of rock mass bulking so as to provide a solid basis for more cost effective rock support design. Next, a systematic investigation will be conducted to study strainbursting with rock ejection and provide a guide on how to estimate energy release for rockburst support design. The approach to be adopted is a combined application of experimental observation, field monitoring, and numerical modeling.The outcome of the research will assist in designing both safer and more cost-effective rock support systems for deep underground excavations. By reducing the risk when mining at depth, the results from the proposed research will contribute to improved worker safety, more productive mineral resource recovery and less investor risk. In addition, urgently needed HQP will be trained for the mining sector. The industry collaborators will be able to adopt the research findings at their operations as the project progresses.