Rock mass stability around underground excavations in a mine / Устойчивость горного массива вокруг подземных выработок в шахте

Stability of underground excavations is of great importance to an operating mine because it ensures the safety of working people and operating facilities as well as successful ore production. The rock mass stability around underground excavations heavily depends on the mechanical behavior of intact rock and discontinuities, the discontinuity geometry pattern and the in-situ stress system. In addition, the configurations of excavations and rock supports and the mine construction sequences also play essential roles. Due to the complex geological or in-situ conditions and the engineering constructions, the assessment of rock mass stability for an underground mine could be very challenging and difficult. Some referenced articles and book chapters cover certain aspects of the material covered in this book. However, a textbook tackling of this difficult problem in detail, especially in 3-D, is currently lacking in the rock mechanics literature.

This monograph presents detailed procedures for the stability assessment and support design for an underground mine case study, that is, from the very beginning of collecting geological and geotechnical information, to the exploration of competent analysis tool to incorporate the most relevant factors and to the final part of discontinuum modeling of underground rock mass stability including the evaluation of applied rock supports. These contents are extensively covered in Chapters 2–7. Chapters 1 and 8 provides the introduction and summary of the monograph. The results of performed laboratory tests and numerical analyses that are omitted from the chapters are presented in Appendices A and B for the completion of the study. <...>