Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study
Destress blasting is a rockburst control technique where highly stressed rock is blasted to reduce the local stress and stiffness of the rock, thereby reducing its burst proneness. The technique is commonly practiced in deep hard rock mines in burst prone developments, as well as in sill or crown pi...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2020-03-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Mining Science and Technology |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095268618305445 |
| _version_ | 1828466023587643392 |
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| author | Isaac Vennes Hani Mitri Damodara Reddy Chinnasane Mike Yao |
| author_facet | Isaac Vennes Hani Mitri Damodara Reddy Chinnasane Mike Yao |
| author_sort | Isaac Vennes |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Destress blasting is a rockburst control technique where highly stressed rock is blasted to reduce the local stress and stiffness of the rock, thereby reducing its burst proneness. The technique is commonly practiced in deep hard rock mines in burst prone developments, as well as in sill or crown pillars which become burst-prone as the orebody is extracted. Large-scale destressing is a variant of destress blasting where panels are created parallel to the orebody strike with a longhole, fanning blast pattern from cross cut drifts situated in the host rock. The aim of panel destressing is to reduce the stress concentration in the ore blocks or pillars to be mined. This paper focuses on the large-scale destress blasting program conducted at Vale’s Copper Cliff Mine (CCM) in Ontario, Canada. The merits of panel destressing are examined through field measurements of mining induced stress changes in the pillar. The destressing mechanism is simulated with a rock fragmentation factor (α) and stress reduction/dissipation factor (β). A 3D model is built and validated with measured induced stress changes. It is shown that the best correlation between the numerical model and field measurements is obtained when the combination of α and β indicates that the blast causes high fragmentation (α = 0.05) and high stress release (β = 0.95) in the destress panel. It is demonstrated that the burst proneness of the ore blocks in the panel stress shadow is reduced in terms of the brittle shear ratio (BSR) and the burst potential index (BPI). Keywords: Destress blasting, Preconditioning, Rockbursts, Strainbursts, Numerical modeling |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T03:44:14Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7dccf1e0e196470eb36041089ad131b8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2095-2686 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T03:44:14Z |
| publishDate | 2020-03-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Journal of Mining Science and Technology |
| spelling | doaj.art-7dccf1e0e196470eb36041089ad131b82022-12-22T01:22:04ZengElsevierInternational Journal of Mining Science and Technology2095-26862020-03-01302141149Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case studyIsaac Vennes0Hani Mitri1Damodara Reddy Chinnasane2Mike Yao3Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E8, Canada; Corresponding author.Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E8, CanadaCopper Cliff Mine, Vale Canada Ltd, Sudbury P0M 1N0, CanadaCopper Cliff Mine, Vale Canada Ltd, Sudbury P0M 1N0, CanadaDestress blasting is a rockburst control technique where highly stressed rock is blasted to reduce the local stress and stiffness of the rock, thereby reducing its burst proneness. The technique is commonly practiced in deep hard rock mines in burst prone developments, as well as in sill or crown pillars which become burst-prone as the orebody is extracted. Large-scale destressing is a variant of destress blasting where panels are created parallel to the orebody strike with a longhole, fanning blast pattern from cross cut drifts situated in the host rock. The aim of panel destressing is to reduce the stress concentration in the ore blocks or pillars to be mined. This paper focuses on the large-scale destress blasting program conducted at Vale’s Copper Cliff Mine (CCM) in Ontario, Canada. The merits of panel destressing are examined through field measurements of mining induced stress changes in the pillar. The destressing mechanism is simulated with a rock fragmentation factor (α) and stress reduction/dissipation factor (β). A 3D model is built and validated with measured induced stress changes. It is shown that the best correlation between the numerical model and field measurements is obtained when the combination of α and β indicates that the blast causes high fragmentation (α = 0.05) and high stress release (β = 0.95) in the destress panel. It is demonstrated that the burst proneness of the ore blocks in the panel stress shadow is reduced in terms of the brittle shear ratio (BSR) and the burst potential index (BPI). Keywords: Destress blasting, Preconditioning, Rockbursts, Strainbursts, Numerical modelinghttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095268618305445 |
| spellingShingle | Isaac Vennes Hani Mitri Damodara Reddy Chinnasane Mike Yao Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study International Journal of Mining Science and Technology |
| title | Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study |
| title_full | Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study |
| title_fullStr | Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study |
| title_short | Large-scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines: A case study |
| title_sort | large scale destress blasting for seismicity control in hard rock mines a case study |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095268618305445 |
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