Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Overview
This topic discusses the decisions made in selecting mining methods and
describes some of the common mining methods used, as well as how
mineral deposits are accessed for bulk extraction. Mining production
activities may be split up into surface and underground mining. This topic
contrasts medium and large-scale methods with artisanal and small-scale
mining.
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In ASM, minerals are often extracted from shallow excavations which open
to surface. This technique has been used from ancient times. The holes are
often dug with hand tools such as picks and shovels, although explosives
might sometimes be used.
Placer mining has high potential for environmental harm and must be
closely controlled. Settling ponds should be used to remove sediments,
which should not be allowed to cause siltation of rivers. Water is recycled
through the whole process.
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Hydraulicking is still used in mining some alluvial deposits as well as tailings
dams for re-treatment, especially for gold, and has also been used
underground for mining coal and chrome.
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3. The advantages of open pit mining
There are a number of advantages of open pit mining when compared to
Underground Mining:
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Low labour intensity (small workforce required): less housing, direct &
social costs associated with employees;
The choice of an open pit mining method may not preclude later
mining at depth by U/G methods.
Very large amounts of waste rock are mined. This creates costs as well
as environmental issues with waste rock disposal;
Major disruption of surface: pit footprint, waste dumps. High visual
impact, especially strip mining. After closure, rehabilitation may be
difficult, slow & costly;
Very large volumes of overburden may need to be moved before
reaching the orebody (e.g. coal) thus delaying return on capital
expenditure;
Open pits catch rain, making them vulnerable to flooding, which may
severely disrupt production;
High levels of skills are required in
mechanized pits.
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To save both time and money, it may be possible to develop the U/G access
from inside the pit. Shafts or declines may be developed from near the
bottom of a pit. They must be well protected from flooding (see drawing
below).
Occasionally, the easiest & cheapest way of moving rock from an open pit is
to mine a tunnel underneath it (see drawing above).
6. Stripping ratio
The main factor in designing an open pit
mine, which largely determines the cost of
mining, is the stripping ratio.
Stripping is the removal of waste rock from
above and around the orebody.
Stripping ratio is influenced by the shape of the orebody and may vary
considerably during the life of the mine. Except in rare cases, it increases
with depth of the orebody below surface.
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The unit costs (cost per tonne or per BCM) for ore & waste might be slightly
different, for various reasons such as hardness, but both cost money, while
only ore gives revenue. This is why stripping ratio is such a crucial aspect of
open pit design and of open pit mine management.
Slope stability is the tendency, or lack of it, for a slope to fail due to stress
forces. The study of this is a specialised branch of mining engineering.
Some berms are slightly inclined along their length and connected to form a
spiral roadway or ramp into a pit. Heavy vehicles working in pits can handle
a maximum slope of about 6 degrees (1:10). Pits may have single or multiple
access ramps for vehicle access.
Overall slope of the pit is measured from the toe (bottom edge) of the
lowest bench to the crest, which is where the top bench meets surface.
Rock, both ore and waste, close to surface, may be softer than in other
parts of the pit, especially if it is oxidized. Soft rock may be amenable to
mining by ripping and dozing with a bulldozer instead of drilling & blasting.
The detailed design of a pit requires a match between the desired pit slope
angle, which may vary on different sides of the pit, and the mining
equipment in use. The drilling and blasting design (length, diameter and
spacing of holes) must be compatible with these. Mobile rockdrills must be
selected with capacity to drill the desired bench height, and the width of
berms must be sufficient to accommodate expected traffic volumes and the
sizes of all vehicles travelling, which include excavators, loaders, haulage
trucks, explosives trucks and service vehicles. Roadways must have a
minimum turning radius to suit the largest vehicle using the roadway. A large
truck may have a 25m turning radius, which can dramatically affect the
shape of a bench & require a lot of extra waste to be mined.
An over-riding factor remains the need for the ratio of bench height to berm
width to give the required pit slope angle.
Oxides: many sulphide metallic orebodies (e.g. Cu, Au) are oxidized at
surface. It is usually necessary to mine oxides separately as they require to
be processed separately from sulphide ore. Removal of oxides is treated as
a distinct phase of the stripping programme. The material may be discarded
as waste, or stockpiled separately, for treatment in a separate process,
either at the same time or later.
8. Pit optimisation
Large pits today are designed by computer modelling using a variety of
commercially available software packages. The
model is constructed over a geological model of
the orebody. The planners input technical
parameters: height of benches & width of berms
& roadways, desired gradient or haulage roads;
number of roadways required; required
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production rate; capacities of main equipment: rockdrills, trucks, loaders
etc.
They supplement this with detailed cost data: drilling & blasting costs for
ore, waste, different rock strata; costs of loading, hauling & dumping ore and
waste; estimates of capital expenditure; financial parameters: assumed
metal price(s) inflation, exchange rates, cost of money (interest & discount
rates).
In each different design, some ore is left behind and a certain volume of
waste is accepted, as it is impossible to change the benches to match the
exact shape of the orebody.
The model may be run with varying assumptions (e.g. metal price). The
results are compared & graphs drawn showing the effect of changes. These
are called sensitivity models.
On 16 July 2004 at 07h10, the north wall of the Nchanga Open Pit in Zambia
collapsed. Nchanga is said to be the second largest open pit in the world,
with a total surface area of 30km2 and a depth of 400m.
The collapse was between the 150m & 330m benches (180 vertical metres).
About 1.8 million cubic metres – 4.5 million tonnes - of rock entered the pit.
This happened although the slope stability was being closely monitored by
surveying & remote radar sensing. The failure was associated with high
seasonal rainfall affecting joint planes in a folded zone.
The same monitoring system was kept in use with a much-improved system
for predicting failure.
Whilst most pit haulage trucks are diesel-powered, they are sometimes
assisted by electric drive up a portion of the haul. Fully automated,
driverless trucks are becoming common. In some pits, static, mobile or
semi-mobile crushers carry out in-pit crushing, which can improve
equipment capacity and life.
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Haulage trucks in pits are typically loaded by power shovels which may be
diesel or electric powered. Planners try to match shovel capacity to truck
sizes to optimise efficiency. Truck capacities may range from 14t up to 360t.
In low-grade metalliferous mines, Grade control is a crucial aspect of pit
management and is computer-planned and often subject to in-pit survey
control.
Handling of waste rock is one of the biggest costs of open pit mining and
has major environmental implications. Sometimes the mining plan allows
waste from a pit to be tipped into an earlier pit where resources are fully
depleted. Waste rock may sometimes be suitable for other uses, e.g.
building aggregate or road construction. This may require some processing
such as crushing and screening, but provides additional revenue to the mine.
Dragline: a very large shovel which can lift broken material in a bucket, turn
and deposit it in a different part of the pit. Used for mining overburden in
coal mines. Walking draglines are mounted on two feet and can lift one at a
time to “walk” from one place to another.
Bucket Wheel Excavator (BWE): a large machine which has a huge wheel
rotating in the vertical plane. Buckets with sharp cutting edges are mounted
in the perimeter of the wheel and as it goes round, they cut through soft
material, collect it and deposit it onto a conveyor which is part of the BWE.
The unit moves forward, cutting & removing material.
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This machine is used for mining very soft materials such as mineral sands,
marine sands often containing valuable heavy metals such as ilmenite &
rutile (titanium), and zirconium.
Dimension stone blocks may be cut into thin slices for facing and for making
slabs for counters (e.g. in kitchens), tiles, memorials and headstones for
graves.
The types of rock most commonly mined in this industry are granite, marble,
travertine, quartzite, slate, serpentinite.
Several types of igneous rock such as dolerite & gabbro are mined &
marketed as black granite.
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This requires mining methods which are flexible & selective. A very high
percentage of the material mined may be rejected for quality reasons. In
some quarries, there may be little or no blasting. When blasting is done, it is
normally done in small diameter holes, closely spaced, using low-energy
explosives such as gunpowder or detonating cord alone.
Two diamond drill holes are drilled to intersect and a continuous loop of
strong wire, embedded with industrial diamonds is pulled around through
the holes to cut a slot. This may be 30m long by 10m high. The slot may be
held open by steel wedges driven in with a hammer. Individual blocks of
stone produced may weigh up to 40 tonnes each.
Dimension stone quarries are normally located in very competent rock and
may have very steep, even vertical sides. The quarries are normally located
in massive deposits and stripping ratios are typically very low; in many
cases, no waste needs to be mined.
Development is the collective name for all the tunnels in a mine, used to
reach an orebody and prepare it for stoping.
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“Development” is used to describe both the process of mining tunnels, and
also the actual tunnels created in the process.
Individual tunnels, while they are being mined, are called development ends
and also development headings.
The floor & roof of a tunnel are often called the footwall & hangingwall.
Stoping is the process of bulk extraction of the orebody which has been
accessed and made available by development. The resulting excavations are
called stopes.
In trackless mining, no vehicles which run on rails are used to move rock. In
these mines, rock is moved by U/G dump trucks or, sometimes, conveyors.
An adit is a horizontal
tunnel into the side of a
hill and is common in
ASM although large mines
sometimes have adits.
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A decline, sometimes called a ramp is a tunnel
which is inclined at an angle, normally between
six and ten degrees below horizontal, to allow
mobile equipment (vehicles) to travel up & down,
into & out of the mine. Declines have become
popular in modern, mechanised mining.
Adits and declines mined into the side of a hill are often located above the
bottom of the hill so that waste rock from the tunnel can simply be tipped
down the side of the hill below the tunnel.
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Entry and departure of persons
Equipment and materials used in the mine enter through these
tunnels. They include all types of machinery, tools, equipment and
materials including timber, explosives, steel, fuel, drilling accessories
and spare parts.
Ventilation: fresh air enters the mine through access development, and
foul air may leave the mine through special shafts, stopes or other
openings.
Services into the mine are routed through access tunnels, e.g. water
pipes, compressed air pipes, power cables, blasting cables,
communication cables.
Shafts may have one or more compartments. Ore and waste rock is
normally hoisted in shafts in steel conveyances called skips, which run on
guides in vertical shafts or on rails in inclines. The skips are raised and
lowered by a hoist or winder, using steel wire ropes which run over sheave
wheels in the headgear. A double-drum winder is designed with overlay and
underlay ropes so that one skip is raised as the other is lowered, the rock
payload being the only component out of balance, thus saving energy.
Although mine planners try to locate shafts in the F/W of an orebody, which
is the most inherently stable position, this is not always possible. A shaft
may pass close to or intersect the orebody. In the ASM sector, it is common
to mine shafts in ore both to limit distances and so that rock from shaft
sinking has value to contribute to the cost. In all these cases, shaft pillars
must be left, i.e. a portion of the orebody left is unmined to protect the
shaft.
Single shafts of up to 2km depth are not uncommon and the deepest in the
world is nearly 3km deep.
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Lateral development refers to the horizontal tunnels in an underground
mine. These tunnels are not actually horizontal but are normally mined at a
slight upward gradient, typically 0.5% or 1:200, as they move away from the
shaft. This allows water to run back to pump stations located close to the
shaft and also gives loaded trains a down-gradient as they carry rock
towards the shaft.
Drives are tunnels mined parallel or almost parallel to the strike of the
orebody, either inside or outside the orebody.
Crosscuts (X/C or X/CUT) are tunnels mined in a direction running across the
width of the orebody, again either within or outside the orebody. They may
be at right angles or oblique to strike.
Tunnels mined upwards above the horizontal are called raises, which may or
may not be in ore. Various techniques are used for this relatively hazardous
activity. Corresponding tunnels below the horizontal are called winzes.
In soft rock, especially in the ASM sector, tunnels may be dug by hand, but
in the majority of mines they are excavated by drilling and blasting. Tunnels
may be drilled using hand-held machines called jackhammers, typically
advancing 2m for each round drilled and blasted. The tunnel size limits the
advance; generally, the round drilled cannot exceed the longest dimension
(width or height) of the tunnel. They may also be drilled with mobile drill
rigs which are usually electro-hydraulic. These machines may be single-
boom, twin-boom or multi-boom and are often capable of drilling several
development ends in a single shift. Advances typically range from 3m to 6m
per round.
Selection of stoping method is one of the most important parts of U/G mine
design and is influenced by:
Dimensions (size & shape) of the orebody: strike, width, depth on dip:
tabular orebodies, massive orebodies and pipes
Dip of the orebody in degrees below the horizontal
Regularity or irregularity of the orebody: geological shape, effects of
folding & faulting
Presence of waste inclusions
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Competence of the orebody rock
Competence of the F/W & H/W rock
Distribution of grade within the orebody
Required production rate
Amount of capital available for mechanisation
Availability of fill material
Open Stoping
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In all three variations, the stope remains open, supported by timber props or
other means. The direction of face advance is different. Ore is collected in
the drive below. Lashing may be entirely by hand,
assisted by mechanical scrapers or by mobile
machines in larger mines. Main drives are typically
30m apart along the dip
of the orebody.
Longwall Stoping is a
type of breast stoping in
which a much longer
face, up to 300m in
length and sometimes
longer, is advanced for distances of up to several kilometres, in a regular
orebody. Mechanised longwall stoping is common in U/G coal mines, using
large and sophisticated machines.
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above, or from a single drive, or parallel holes from a sill excavated across
the full width of the orebody and supported. Drilling can also be done from
multiple sub-levels feeding a single loading level.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18QU_UoxA04.
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Again, methods vary considerably. Stoping may proceed up-dip or down-dip
and stopes may be filled with waste rock, either entirely from development
or wholly or partially with waste mined specially for the purpose. Tailings
are also used, sometimes consolidated with cement. The use of tailings fill
has the environmental benefit of avoiding surface disposal.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhI0IPZmniY.
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Block caving is a method which is
used very successfully on large-
scale mines exploiting massive
orebodies or pipes. An undercut is
developed beneath a block of ore
incorporating the entire “footprint
of the orebody,” the block having a
height of 200 to 300m. In a pipe of
diameter 1km & SG of 2.5 a 200m
block would contain 393 million tonnes of ore. Thus the ratio of costly
development to tonnage ultimately extracted is very favourable, although
there is a substantial lead time in developing the undercut and associated
facilities. The undercut feeds a series of cones which collect ore and direct
it to drawpoints below, usually in a “herringbone” formation. As the
undercut is advanced, the block of ore above it progressively collapses,
usually with no drilling and blasting. The ore breaks up and keeps the
drawpoints full for the entire life of the block which is usually a number of
years. During this time, the undercut for the block below is developed. A lot
of secondary blasting may be required to deal with large rocks but the
method is efficient, low-cost and safe. Again, men and machines work at all
times in solid ground.
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A large U/G mine is like a city, requiring reticulation systems for power and
water. Power is required for ventilation, lighting and a host of other
purposes. Water is also required for many purposes including drilling and
dust suppression.
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