Arching in inclined and vertical mine stopes

Abstract

Hydraulic fills are one of the most common backfills used by mining industries to backfill the stopes (voids) created after extracting the ore. It is important to estimate the stresses within to the stope to design the drainage and barricades. Most of the existing analytical models for the estimation of stresses within the stopes consider flat rectangular elements to include the effects of arching, although a continuous compression catenary arch of principal stresses using intersections of shear lines is the reality in field situations. In this paper, a circular compression arch of principal stresses has therefore been used to derive a general expression for stress within the inclined stopes. The results have been compared with the existing analytical and numerical models for vertical stopes as well as inclined stopes. A methodology has been presented to determine the vertical stress variation along the width of stope at different depths. The variation of stresses along the width of stope is also presented graphically.