ABSTRACT

In order to decide an optimal stope dimension for underground mining operations using sublevel stopping methods, it is necessary to ensure the stability of the excavation evaluating the rock mass conditions along the duration of the mining period to reduce operational hazards and achieve continuous production.

Analytic tools like the stability graph method introduced by Mathews has been used for more than three decades since then, several improvements have taken place.

Nowadays mines continuously evaluate and collect their own local case histories, this is fundamental to update the stability graph limits and capture their local geotechnical conditions, improving the overall predictive reliability and its accuracy. To delineate new stability boundaries, it is required to perform back analysis of exploited stopes, collecting the mine geotechnical information and calculating the performance parameters, assigning a stability state to each of them. However, this procedure has demonstrated to be time-consuming, especially when a large number of stopes is analysed.

In this paper, a real case study is presented being evaluated using Mineroc software to collect, perform and analyse a large quantity of exploited stopes and the site geotechnical conditions in order to generate new local stability limits, delineating new guidelines for mine design. The research will outline the analysis undertaken to set out a better tool to exploit and operate the mine based on local case histories and local geotechnical information.