Development and application of a flexible numerical model to evaluate the safety of room-and-pillar mines

Abstract

The design of room-and-pillar mines relies on the correct estimation of the safety indicator of the underground structures formed by the excavation of drifts. Thus, the study of the geomechanical behavior is of vital importance. The mathematical models play an important role in the identification of problematic areas and allows different configurations to be tested in a safe manner. This article presents the development and application of a flexible and automatic routine to quantify the safety of room-and-pillar mines in terms of the safety factor of pillar and room convergence. The commercial software package FLAC3D was used to implement a computation routine in FISH language that can automatically represent the main characteristics of the geomechanical conditions, lithology and geometric features of a room-and-pillar project in a fast and accurate manner. A case study was performed on a manganese ore mine in order to demonstrate the capabilities of the developed routine.