Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

• Behnam Alipenhani ¹
• mehran jalilian ²
• Abbas Majdi ³
• Hassan Bakhshandeh Amnieh ⁴
• Mohammad Hossein Khosravi ⁵

¹ Ph.D Student, School of Mining, College of Engineering, University of Tehran

² School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

³ School of Mining Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran

⁴ Amirabad St.

⁵ Department of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Birjand, Birjand, Iran

Abstract

The paper presents the effect of the dip of joints, joint spacing, and the undercutting method on the height of the caving in block caving. The obtained results show that among the three investigated parameters, respectively, the dip of joints, undercutting method, and joint spacing have the greatest effect on increasing the height of the caving zone. Comparing the data obtained from physical and numerical modeling shows a 97% match. Also, by increasing the joint spacing from 4 to 6 cm, 14%, from 6 to 8 cm, about 35%, and from 8 to 10, about 50%, the height of the caving zone has decreased. Regarding the dip of the joint, with the dip increasing from 30 to 45 degrees, about 3% of the caving height decreases. By increasing the dip of the joint from 45 to 60 degrees, the caving height has decreased by 42%. By increasing this value from 60 to 75 degrees, the caving height has increased by 50%. Also, changing the undercutting method from symmetric to advanced undercutting has increased the caving height by 40%. Additionally, three mathematical models have been proposed based on the shape of the caving zone in physical modeling.

Keywords

• Block caving
• physical modeling
• numerical modeling
• base friction table
• height of caving zone

Main Subjects

• Underground Mining