News - full story
Mining claims some 12,000 lives each year
27/01/2012
Making mining safer
Researchers look to improve rock strength assessment
Simon Grose
MINING could be a safer occupation in the future if a University of Arizona research project devises new methods to estimate the strength of rock formations.
The project aims to develop new methods of ground stability analysis using a range of methods including field investigations and rock fracture modelling.
Pinnaduwa Kulatilake, professor of geological engineering at Arizona, believes current approaches to estimating ground stability are little more than educated guesswork. "We have been using very simple methodologies in practice to address very complicated problems," he says.
Ground stability is determined by the type of rock, the presence of joints, fractures and faults, the stresses they’re subjected to by overlying rock or tectonic forces, groundwater conditions, and how excavation will affect existing stresses in the rock. These factors can be assessed to a point in the field and laboratory but the techniques currently available are limited, Kulatilake says.
Funded by a US$1.25m grant from the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Kulatilake will spend the next five years researching alternative stability tests in partnership with four mines – two in China and two in the US – which cannot be identified due to confidentiality agreements.
The project will focus on slope stability in an open pit mine in and tunnel stability in coal mines and a metal mine. It will also aim to establish a new rock mass strength criterion for rock masses with non-orthogonal fracture systems (common in metal mines) and for those characterised by approximately orthogonal fracture systems in sedimentary formations. Kulatilake says the work “also relates to civil rock engineering projects such as tunnels, caverns, foundations, dams, and slopes."
Mining has claimed 647 deaths in the US over the last decade and an estimated 12,000 worldwide each year.
