Title: Required strength estimation of a cemented backfill with the front wall exposed and back wall pressured

Authors: Guangsheng Liu; Li Li; Xiaocong Yang; Lijie Guo

Addresses: Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Beijing 100160, China; Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3A7, Canada; School of Civil and Resources Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China ' Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3A7, Canada ' Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Beijing 100160, China ' Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Beijing 100160, China

Abstract: Determining the required strength is a critical task in backfilled stopes design. Over the years, several solutions have been proposed by considering a backfill with one face exposed and confined by three rock walls. In practice, a cemented backfill may be in contact with an uncemented backfill and exposed on the opposite side. The uncemented backfill can apply a pressure on the exposed cemented backfill and affects its stability. In this study, a lateral pressure equal to the isostatic overburden pressure is considered for the uncemented backfill. An analytical solution is proposed to evaluate the minimum required strength of the cemented backfill exposed on one side, pressured by the uncemented backfill on the opposite side, and confined by two rock walls. The proposed analytical solution is validated by numerical simulations with FLAC^3D.

Keywords: mining with backfill; delayed backfill; cemented backfill; uncemented backfill; pressure; multiple stopes excavation and backfilling; required strength; analytical solution; numerical modelling; FLAC^3D.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMME.2018.091214

International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2018 Vol.9 No.1, pp.1 - 20

Received: 15 Jul 2016
Accepted: 28 Jun 2017
Published online: 16 Apr 2018 *

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