ABSTRACT
Ground Support in Mining and Underground Construction-Villaescusa & Potvin (eds.) © 2004 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 90 5809 640 8
ABSTRACT: The increasing seismicity experienced by Western Australian underground mining operations in the Yilgarn block was the trigger to investigate the performance of high-tensile steel wire mesh for use as ground support in burst prone mines. The high-tensile mesh Tecco is a chain-link mesh which is made of steel wire with a tensile strength of about l,800 MPa and includes extra strong border connections. This mesh was especially designed to absorb kinetic energy in rockfall protection systems and showed excellent performance in according field tests. Before the mesh was tested at the dynamic testing facility of the Western Australian School of Mines, preliminary static mesh tests were executed at the mesh testing facility of the Goldfields St Ives Junction Mine. Several different tests were carried out to determine the force-deflection behaviour and the breaking load of the high-tensile mesh under mining conditions, with different bolt patterns and wire diameters. These results are presented in this paper as well as the effect of cut wire to the mesh behaviour and capacity. By using the results of these static mesh tests, it was possible to calibrate a computer simulation which was used to model rockburst impact into the high-tensile mesh. The results of this study show the good performance of the high-tensile mesh Tecco, and the first field trials show that its installation is practicable. High-tensile chain-link mesh can thus be considered as an option for safe ground support in burst prone underground mining areas.
