M INING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Mining Science and Technology 20 (2010) 08090813 www.elsevier.com/locate/jcumt

Discrete element approach for mine dump stability analysis

RADHAKANTA Koner*, DEBASHISH Chakravarty
Department of Mining Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India Abstract: Mine overburden dumps have posed significant safety issues in the operations of various unit operations of open pit mining especially the external dumps. The external dumps are composed of a mixture of fragmented rocks and loose soil. Their characteristic is comparable to heavily discontinuous solid mass. The conventional approach of limit equilibrium methods provide safety factors for the slope but nothing about the stress-strain characteristics of the large dump mass. The designs of dump location and their respective geometry are integrated for the know-how of the stability characteristics of these dumps. The discrete element method uses a circular disk to represent the granular solid mass and their interactions are described by the Newtons third law of motion. The displacement is described by the sliding of the circular disk. This work is focused on the modeling efficiency of the discrete element methods to represent the behaviour of mine dump masses with the specified joint plane for the limit equilibrium method. The advantage of the work lies on the ease of information retrieval at any point at the dump mass concerning the stress and strain histories, displacement, failures etc. which when integrated produces a better understanding of the stability of the dump masses. Keywords: dump slope; safety factor; discrete element method; micromechanical properties; discontinuity plane

Introduction

Analysis and assessment of the stability of slopes are the most important aspects in open pit extraction of mineral. Starting from the optimum pit bench design to the efficient handling of the waste dump; the complete task forms the strategic requirement for the mining authority. The increased coal based power generation leads to more demand of coal and ultimately, more supply of coal on a daily basis. At present the most adopted technology or method for coal extraction is open pit mining in Indian coal production, which has certain distinct advantages. Deeper the mines are, more is the stripping ratio; and at times reaches abnormally high values that may become non-economic. It leads to the generation of a large amount of waste overburden which needs to be adequately handled by the mining authorities. The two ways of handling are possible; one of which is the internal dumping adopted at many instances but was not physically feasible in the studied mines due to circumstantial and environmental hindrance. The main reason was the existence of coal seams below the worked out seam. The second method is the external dumping over the normal ground or specifically identified sites for this purpose. The normal life
Received 10 February 2010; accepted 15 May 2010 *Corresponding author. Tel: 91 9475198131 E-mail address: rkoner@iitkgp.ac.in doi: 10.1016/S1674-5264(09)60286-6

of these dumping may be from ten to twenty years and in many cases no specific time limit exists. In this preview, the importance of the external dump stability studies gave an impetus to the research perspective. Very little literature has been found relating to the overall planning of the external overburden dump slope stability that comprises of a mixture of fragmented rocks and loose top soil geo-materials. That is why a complete research is necessary; taking all these constraints of the present mine site condition. In order to evaluate the stability of a mine dump slope, the geological factors of the fragmented rocks and loose soil mixture, the geometrical and the mechanical characteristics of slope should be examined first. Particularly, the geological factors and the physical and the mechanical characteristics which fundamentally affect the stability of a mine overburden dump slope[1-3]. The slope analysis, based on such characteristics, is usually derived from the limit equilibrium method; it has been long adopted due to definite conception and convenience towards field applications. However, the same configuration of the slope has been observed to indicate different results under different analyses, because a general-purpose program or a stability analysis table may pre-suppose various hypotheses by presenter or the developer. Furthermore, it is impossible to analyze the deformation and the regional behavior because the simulated surface behavior is different from the reality or the field conditions; besides,

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it just indicates the equilibrium of various forces on destruction. A difficulty with all these equilibrium methods is that, in turn, these necessitate the assumptions relating to side force directions between the slices, yet the concept of the side forces is entirely artificial and is not well established till date[1]. Thus, discrete element method, which conducts analyzing the rock slopes having joints through an aspect on the behavior of particle size, was used in this study to evaluate the stability of these external overburden dumps[4-7]. The Discrete Element Method (DEM) described the mechanical behavior of these assemblies of discs (2D) and spheres (3D) representing the geo-materials by shape for the considered external overburden mine dumps. The method is based on the use of an explicit numerical scheme in which the interactions between or amongst the particles are monitored following contact-by-contact, and the motion of the particles are modeled particle-by-particle. Results were compared with the ones derived from the existing limit equilibrium method, after analyzing an aspect of final failure surface that originated from the movement of the dump surfaces.

factor obtained from the limit equilibrium method were used in this study. The Eq.(1) was used to evaluate the safety factor of a dry slope where tension crack does not exist. The basic material properties of overburden were used for the analysis, and the calculations were carried out to derive the safety factor values of 1.67, 1.17, 0.95, and 0.92 by changing the gradient of the joint surfaces while other parameters kept on the same.
FoS = CA + W cos P tan W sin P (1)

A = H cos ecP 1 W = H 2 ( cot P cot f 2

where FoS is the safety factor; C and the cohesion and the friction angle of joint respectively; A and W the contact area and the weight of the moving ground block respectively; P and f the angle of joint planes and the slope face angle respectively; all expressed in consistent units. The interrelation between safety factor and the gradient of discontinuity evaluated through the limit equilibrium method in the present study have been produced in Table 1. It may be observed from the table that keeping the other parameters like the cohesion, friction angle, the slope angle and the height of the slope fixed the factor of safety decreases with increase in the angle of the joint.

Limit equilibrium method

Limit equilibrium method has been widely used to analyze dump or embankment slope stability in the past, worldwide. In the present study, in order to evaluate the interrelation between the behavior of the joint faces and the stability of the overburden dump slopes; the material properties derived from the safety
Table 1
Density (kg/m ) 2000 2000 2000 2000
3

Calculated parameter P for obtaining the safety factors with other parameters for the considered slope
Cohesion (kPa) 2 2 2 2 Friction angle () 20 20 20 20 Slope angle () 45 45 45 45 Height (m) 35 35 35 35 Angle of joint plane () 15 22 29 35 Factor of safety 1.67 1.17 0.95 0.92

3 Discrete element method

In the DEM, the interaction of the particles is treated as a dynamic process with states of equilibrium developing whenever the internal forces balance each other. The contact forces and displacements of a stressed assembly of particles are found by tracing the movements of the individual particles. Movements result from the propagation, through the particle system, of disturbances caused by the specified walls and the particle motion and/or body forces. This is a dynamic process in which the speed of propagation depends on the physical properties of each of these discrete systems. The dynamic behavior is represented numerically by an explicit time stepping algorithm, using a central-difference scheme to integrate the accelerations and the velocities. The DEM is based upon the idea

that the time step chosen may be so small that, during a single time step, disturbances cannot propagate from any particle further than its immediate neighbors. Then, at all times, the forces acting on any particle are determined exclusively by its interactions with the neighboring particles with which it is in contact. Since the speed at which a disturbance can propagate is a function of the physical properties of the discrete system, the time step can be chosen accordingly to satisfy the above constraint. The use of an explicit, as opposed to an implicit, numerical scheme makes it possible to simulate the nonlinear interaction of a large number of particles without excessive memory requirements or the need for an iterative procedure. The calculations performed in the DEM alternate between the application of Newtons second law to the particles and a force-displacement law at the con-

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tacts. The Newtons second law is used to determine the motion of each particle arising from these contacts and body forces acting upon it; while the force-displacement law is used to update the contact forces arising from the relative motion at each of these contacts. The presence of walls in PFC2D requires only the force-displacement law to account for behaviour of the ball-wall contacts. The Newtons second law is not applied to the walls, since the wall motion is specified as boundary of the model i.e., fixed (Fig. 1).

Ec k n / ks

c c
where E c is the Youngs modulus at each particle-particle of the contact; k n / k s the ratio of particle normal to shear stiffness; the particle friction coefficient (that applies when the contact bond has broken); and c and c the normal and shear strengths, respectively, of the material lying between any two particles joined by a contact bond. In order to determine the basic material properties of overburden dump geo-materials, which are equivalent to those of limit equilibrium method, for using in the discrete element method, the material calibration should be carried out as depicted in Fig. 2[4-5].

Fig. 1

Calculation cycle followed in PFC2D

Evaluation of the model properties for simulation

E c

Ec kn / ks

The laboratory results of solids such as rocks, can be simulated with the numerical tests on synthetic materials. The PFC2D input parameters could be varied until the behavior of the numerical sample matches that of the physical sample. The corresponding parameters may then be used in a PFC2D simulation for a larger problem containing the same solid material as in the sample. Biaxial tests simulated by confining a rectangular sample (comprised of a compacted particle assembly) within the defined four walls of the numerical model. The top and bottom walls simulate loading platens; whereas the left and right walls simulate the confinement experienced by the sample sides. The sample is loaded in a strain-controlled fashion by specifying the velocities of the top and bottom walls. During all stages of the test, the velocities of the left and right walls are controlled automatically by a numerical servo-mechanism that maintains a constant confining stress within the sample. The stresses and strains experienced by the sample are determined in a macro-fashion by summing all the forces acting upon it, and relative the distance between the appropriate walls. Material response is computed by tracking the various stress and strain histories. The complete set of micromechanical parameters that characterizes a contact-bonded material are given by:

t
Fig. 2

c c

Calibration of micromechanical properties from the physical mechanical properties of solids

Similar to the numerical biaxial test; the direct shear tests were also simulated to convert the mechanical properties of the overburden dump geo-materials into the micromechanical properties for the numerical analysis[6-10]. The procedure of simulation is shown in Figs. 1 to 4. The derived input properties are presented in Tables 2 to 4.

Fig. 3 Flowchart of the method adopted for predicting displacement profiles using the discrete element method

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(a) Test model

(b) Simulation

Fig. 4 Table 2

Numerical biaxial the test model and simulation Table 4

Items Friction coefficient N_bond (N) S_bond (N) Spacing

Original and artificial properties of the dump mass

Original property 96 73 0.26 Artificial property 100 7 0.25

Parameter UCS (MPa) Youngs modulus (GPa) Poissons ratio

Micromechical properties used for discontinuity plane (joint)

Value 0.0 1000.0 1000.0 0.1

Table 3
Item

Micromechanical properties used for dump mass

Density (kg/m3) Kn Ks Pb_rad (m) Pb_ks (GPa/m) 2300 1x108 1x108 1.0 1.5 1.5 2 2

5 Model geometry
Fig. 5 shows the geometry of the overburden dump slope model investigated for the present study. Analyzed range of dump mass geometry is 95 m60 m, the height of slope is 30 m and gradient of slope is 45. The sides of the model were fixed to the X-axis and the lower part was fixed in both X- and Y-axes as the boundary conditions imposed for the analysis.

Ball Stiffness (N/m)

Parallel bond

Pb_kn (GPa/m) Pb_nstrength (MPa) Pb_ssterngth (MPa)

(a) 30 m high dump slope with both side roller boundary and rigid at the base Fig. 5

(b) Joint inserted at the distinct element model (15)

Numerical dump slope geometry

Results and discussion

Discrete element analyses were carried out using the simulated material properties for each of the safety factor as input data; results have been shown in Fig. 6. In each figure, a red line showed the critical discontinuity surface by joint. The effect of discontinuity surface (joint) did show small displacement responses for the first and the second models with the safety factors of 1.67 and 1.17 respectively. So, this represents the safer sides of these dumps in view of the stability conditions (Figs. 6a and 6b). But gradual sliding movement occurred along the slopes of joint faces for the third and the fourth cases with the safety factors of 0.95 and 0.92 respectively (Figs. 6c and 6d). In these mine dumps, the sliding occurred along the discontinuity surface (more prominent in the Fig. 6d,

discontinuity surface oriented at 35 dip direction). There were also some potential irregular failure surfaces developed (as shown in Fig. 7, the line joining the cracks distinguished by the red line), that only gave hints about the imminent failure. These may serve as indicators and proper precautionary measures may be taken up based on these observations.

Conclusions

In this study, the behavior of the external mine overburden dump slopes interlocked with the discontinuity surfaces was analyzed using the PFC2D tool, which implements one of the discrete element methods. To describe the basic behaviours, micromechanical material properties were derived from laboratory test models. Four mine external overburden

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dump slope models were analyzed which were equivalent to the limit equilibrium models with dif-

ferent safety factors of 1.67, 1.17, 0.95, and 0.92.

(a) Angle 15 and displacement of 0.2 m

(b) Angle 22 and displacement of 0.4 m

(c) Angle 29 and displacement of 2.57 m

(d) Angle 35 and displacement of 3.27 m

Fig. 6

DEM analysis for different joint set dip angles and displacements

References
Region of instability

Fig. 7

Line of potential failure surface and the unstable block region at the dump slope

The safety factors of 1.67 and 1.17 obtained in DEM models did not show any failure behavior around the slope faces or discontinuity planes, while those for 0.95 and 0.92 showed sliding along the discontinuity planes and slope faces. Consequently, one can estimate the safety factor as well as estimate the failure behavior on the joint planes and slope faces by the use of the distinct element methods; of which the later cannot be analysed in the equilibrium analysis methods. Similar to the fact that, at any real mine external overburden dump, the failure surface(s) is (are) usually not regular has been established using this analysis where the output also is observed to be the irregular potential failure surface in the dump slope.

Griffiths D V, Lane P A. Slope stability analysis by finite elements. Geotechnique, 1999, 49(3): 387-403. [2] Koner R K, Chakravarty D. Application of artificial neural network in slope stability analysis: a case study. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Advances in Mining Technology and Management. Kharagpur: IIT, 2005. [3] Koner R, Chakravarty D, Singh A K, Chakravarty K. Application of numerical methods for assessment of slope stability. Mine Tech, 2008, 29(1): 3-10. [4] Koner R, Chakravarty D. Stability study of the mine overburden dumps slope: a micromechanical approach. Studia Geotechnica et Mechanica, 2010, XXXII(1): 3558. [5] Preh A, Poisel R, Krastanov J. Investigation of the failure mechanisms of hard, competent rock lying on a soft, incompetent base by PFC2D. In: Proceedings of 1st International PFC Symposium. Gelsenkirchen: Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, 2002: 277-282. [6] Seidel J P, Haberfield C M. A theoretical model for rock joints subjected to constant normal stiffness direct shear. Int J Rock Mech Mining Sci, 2002, 39(5): 539-553. [7] Wang C, Tannant D D, Lilly P A. Numerical analysis of the stability of heavily jointed rock slopes using PFC2D. Int J Rock Mech Mining Sci, 2003, 40: 415-424. [8] Yin S H, Wu A X. Experimental study of preferential solute transportation during dump leaching. Journal of China University of Mining & Technology, 2006, 16(4): 416-420. [9] Ataei M, Bodaghabadi S. Comprehensive analysis of slope stability and determination of stable slopes in the Chador-Malu iron ore mine using numerical and limit equilibrium methods. Journal of China University of Mining & Technology, 2008, 18(4): 488-493. [10] Song H W, Duan Y Y, Yang J. Numerical simulation on bolted rock joint shearing performance. Mining Science and Technology, 2010, 20(3): 460-465.

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