An investigation of the uniaxial compressive strength of a cemented hydraulic backfill made of alluvial sand

Auteurs

Guangsheng Liu, School of Civil and Resources Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100083, China, Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, C.P. 6079 Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, H3C 3A7, QC, Canada, Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Building 23, Zone 18 of ABP, No. 188, South 4th Ring RoadWest, Beijing, 100160, China
Li Li, Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, C.P. 6079 Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, H3C 3A7, QC, Canada
Mike Yao, Mining TEC (Technical Excellence Centre), Vale Base Metals, Brownfield Exploration, 337 Power Street, Copper Cliff, Sudbury, P0M 1N0, ON, Canada
David Landry, Mines Geology & Technical Services, Vale Canada Limited, Ontario Operations, Vale Canada Limited, 18 Rink Street, Copper Cliff, Sudbury, P0M 1N0, ON, Canada
Farid Malek, Mines Geology & Technical Services, Vale Canada Limited, Ontario Operations, Vale Canada Limited, 18 Rink Street, Copper Cliff, Sudbury, P0M 1N0, ON, Canada
Xiaocong Yang, Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Building 23, Zone 18 of ABP, No. 188, South 4th Ring RoadWest, Beijing, 100160, China
Lijie Guo, Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Building 23, Zone 18 of ABP, No. 188, South 4th Ring RoadWest, Beijing, 100160, China

Type de document

Études primaires

Année de publication

2017

Langue

Anglais

Titre de la revue

Minerals

Résumé

Backfill is commonly used in underground mines. The quality control of the backfill is a key step to ensure it meets the designed strength requirement. This is done through sample collection from the underground environment, followed by uniaxial compression tests to obtain the Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) in the laboratory. When the cylindrical cemented backfill samples are axially loaded to failure, several failure modes can be observed and mainly classified into diagonal shear failure and axial split failure. To date, the UCS obtained by these two failure modes are considered to be the same with no distinction between them. In this paper, an analysis of the UCS results obtained on a cemented hydraulic backfill made of alluvial sand at a Canadian underground mine over the course of more than three years is presented. The results show that the UCS values obtained by diagonal shear failure are generally higher than those obtained by axial split failure for samples with the same recipe and curing time. This highlights the importance of making a distinction between the UCS values obtained by the two different modes of failure. Their difference in failure mechanism is explained. Further investigations on the sources of the data dispersion tend to indicate that the UCS obtained by laboratory tests following the current practice may not be representative of the in-situ strength distribution in the underground stopes due to segregation in cemented hydraulic backfill. © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Mots-clés

Exploitation avec remblayage, Stowing and filling, Concentration de tensions, Stress concentration

Numéro de projet IRSST

2013-0029

Citation recommandée

Liu, G., Li, L., Yao, M., Landry, D., Malek, F., Yang, X. et Guo, L. (2017). An investigation of the uniaxial compressive strength of a cemented hydraulic backfill made of alluvial sand. Minerals, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/min7010004