Stability Analyses of Waste Rock Barricades Designed to Retain Paste Backfill
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17, Issue 3
Abstract
Cemented paste backfill (CPB) is widely applied in underground mines around the world. Prior to stope backfilling, barricades need to be built in drifts near drawpoints to retain the flowable fill. A number of reported barricade failures have shown that barricade stability is critical for ensuring successful and safe application of backfill. The barricades are usually made of high-strength materials such as bricks, concrete blocks, or reinforced shotcrete. Alternatively, barricades made of waste rocks are becoming popular because of their simple and low-cost construction. A simple solution was proposed for sizing waste rock barricades (WRBs) by considering the limit equilibrium of a three-dimensional (3D)-rectangular block. More recently, the authors modified this solution by considering the global stability of trapezoidal barricades, but the local stability was not taken into account. Consequently, the size of the crest can be underestimated, leading to a nonconservative design. In this paper, a more complete solution is proposed, considering both the global and local stabilities of trapezoidal WRBs. The analytical solution was calibrated and validated using numerical modeling. The flexibility and validity of the proposed solution were further tested with complementary simulations. Sample calculations are also performed here to show the application of this solution and to illustrate the effect of key influencing factors on barricade design.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC 402318), Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST 2013-0029), Fonds de recherche du Québec—Nature et Technologies (FRQNT 2014-MI-183747, 2015-MI-191676), and industrial partners of the Research Institute on Mines and the Environment (RIME UQAT-Polytechnique; http://rime-irme.ca).
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17 • Issue 3 • March 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 16, 2015
Accepted: May 26, 2016
Published online: Aug 23, 2016
Discussion open until: Jan 23, 2017
Published in print: Mar 1, 2017
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