Tunnelling and

Underground Space
Technology
incorporating Trenchless
Technology Research
Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
www.elsevier.com/locate/tust

Disturbance of mining operations to a deep underground workshop

Charlie C. Li
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Geology and Mineral Resources Engineering, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway

Received 6 December 2004; received in revised form 4 April 2005; accepted 5 April 2005
Available online 8 June 2005

Abstract

An underground workshop was located at a depth of 880 m in a metal mine, Sweden. A few years after its excavation, the work-
shop was subjected to a certain extent of damage. A number of fractures appeared on the walls of the workshop. Shotcrete separated
from the rock surface and even fell down to the floor. The mine worried about what happened and wondered how the mining oper-
ations underneath would affect the workshop. A further question was if the workshop should be closed and a new one should be
excavated. Those questions therefore concerned not only with the matter of safety but also of economy. An investigation of the
instability in the workshop was conducted in 2000. It was carried out through geological surveys, in situ deformation measurements
and also numerical modelling. The study revealed that the problem of instability in the workshop was associated with the mining
operations at the level of the workshop even though the mine stopes were over 90-m away from the workshop. It was also assessed
that the mining operations underneath would not disturb the workshop and thus the workshop could continue its service as usual.
The mining operations underneath was finished in 2003. The results of a follow-up programme confirmed the assessments made in
the study. Measurements of rock deformation showed that the workshop was stable during the whole period of mining underneath.
Two lessons are learned from this case: (1) permanent underground infrastructures should not be placed in geological contact zones
even if they are not necessarily weak zones; (2) the horizontal extent of the disturbance zone around an opening at depth can be very
large. For the case in question, the horizontal stretch of the disturbance zone around the mine stope was approximately in the same
order as the height of the stope.

2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Disturbance zone; Rock failure; Underground infrastructure; Mining operation; In-situ measurement

1. Introduction bility was conducted in 2000, attempting to clarify what

An underground workshop was located at a depth of
about 880 m in the Kristineberg mine, Sweden. It was
excavated in 1992. In 1998, fractures started to appear
on the shotcrete walls of the workshop. The shotcrete
even fell down in some places. Brick walls built in the
workshop were damaged. The mine wondered whether
the planned mining operations underneath would fur-
ther deteriorate the stability of the workshop and
whether it should be closed and a new one should be
excavated. The questions therefore were concerned with
both safety and economy. An investigation of the insta-
E-mail address: charlie.c.li@geo.ntnu.no.
had caused the damage to the workshop and also to fig-
ure out if the mining operations underneath would neg-
atively affect the workshop. The study was carried out
through geological investigations, in situ displacement
measurements and also numerical modelling.
When an underground opening is excavated, rocks
might be subjected to failure in shear or extension in a
zone around the opening due to changes in stresses. This
is called disturbance zone in this paper. The size of the
disturbance zone is not only dependent upon stresses,
but also upon the strength of rock and discontinuities.
What one would like to essentially figure out in the case
of the workshop was how large the disturbance zone
would be around the mine stopes at the level of the
workshop. So far a number of studies have been done

0886-7798/$ - see front matter
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tust.2005.04.001
2 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
mainly on disturbance of excavation around under-
ground openings of relatively small size like tunnels
(Push and Stanfors, 1992; Shen and Barton, 1997; Mar-
tin et al., 1997; Sato et al., 2000). Studies on disturbance
of an excavation to other underground openings nearby
are even less reported. The current case concerns distur-
bance of mine stopes, the total height and length of
which are in order of hundred metres, to a workshop
that was far from the stope position. What happened
in the workshop provides a good opportunity to esti-
mate the size of the disturbance zone around the large-
scale mine opening at depth.
In this paper, level is used as a synonymous term to
depth with the origin at the ground surface. Stope refers
to a defined portion in the ore body where the ore is
mined out.
2. The workshop
2.1. Location and layout
The workshop was located in the foot wall of the
mine stopes at level 880 m. It had a horizontal distance
of about 90 m to the nearest stope. Both the mined out
stopes and the stopes to be mined in the near field of the
workshop are sketched in Fig. 1 in a vertical plane per-
pendicular to the strike of the ore body. The stopes
above the level 880 m were already mined out at the time
when the investigation began. Mine stope 1306 was from
level 1000 to 1050 m and stope 1404 from 1050 to
1100 m. The whole stope 1306 and the lower part of
stope 1404 were already mined out. Next step was to
mine the upper part of stope 1404B and probably also
a new stope C above stope 1306. All the mined out
stopes were back-filled with tailing sands or/and waste
rocks.
Fig. 1. Position of the workshop with respect to the nearby mine
stopes in a vertical profile perpendicular to the strike of the ore body.
The workshop had a dimension of 12 · 9 m (width ·
height). Fig. 2 shows a horizontal projection of the work-
shop. It was reinforced with bolts and a layer of 6-cm thick
steel-fibre reinforced shotcrete. The bolts were cement-
grouted rebars with a diameter of 20 mm and a length
of 3.1 m. They were installed with a pattern of 1 · 1 m.
2.2. Instability problems
The workshop had been stable since it was excavated.
In 1998, however, fractures started to appear on the sur-
face of the shotcrete on the southern wall of the workshop.
Fractures appeared all over the wall in year 2000. Most of
the fractures were vertical and some were open up to one
centimetre. In some places the shotcrete separated from
the rock or fell down to the floor. A door frame built in
the workshop at position P1 in Fig. 2 was seriously dis-
torted so that the door could not be closed. Portal B
was also seriously deformed. A floor-to-roof inclined
fracture was formed in the brick wall of the portal. The
brick joints dislocated a few centimetres along the fracture
plane, indicating that the floor of the workshop was heav-
ing. Another indication of floor heave in that place was
that the concrete floor was cracked and lifted.
The wall of the ramp drift at position P2 outside the
workshop was fractured along foliation planes. The rock
type at that position was chlorite-rich sericitic quartzite.
2.3. Local geology
Geological mapping showed that there were no faults
and other weak zones in the area of the workshop. The
rock types were mainly granite porphyry and sericite–
chloritic quartzite plus a bit volcanic greenstone,
Fig. 3. One joint/foliation set was dominant in the rock
Fig. 2. Horizontal layout of the underground workshop. A, B and C
mark the positions of the three measurement profiles. EA1, EA2, etc.,
are the extensometers.
 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
Fig. 3. The rock types in the area of the workshop.
mass, which was approximately parallel with the tabular
ore body. Joint spacing varied from centimetres in chlor-
itic rock to metres in competent rock. Portal A was to-
tally in the porphyry, while portal B overrode the
contact zone between the sericite–chloritic quartzite
and the greenstone. The southern part of the workshop
was located in the contact zone by all the three rocks.
The northern part was in the competent porphyry. The
strongest one among the three rock types was the gran-
ite porphyry with a uniaxial compressive strength of
rc = 159 MPa (Nyström and Board, 1991). The seri-
cite–chloritic quartzite was much weaker than the por-
phyry with rc = 68 MPa. The weakest was the
greenstone with rc = 60 MPa.
3. In situ measurement
Convergence and extensometer measurements were
carried out in three profiles, A, B and C, since Novem-
ber 1997, Fig. 2. Profile A was located just outside portal
A, profile B outside portal B, and profile C in the middle
way of the workshop.
3.1. Convergence measurement
Fig. 4 shows the measurements of the wall conver-
gence in the three profiles. The convergence of the walls
was only a few millimetres until September 1998. Then,
it started to accelerate at all the three positions, particu-
larly in profiles B and C. The convergence in profile C
reached an amount of over 16 mm in May 2000.
3.2. Extensometer measurement
Extensometers were installed in horizontal boreholes
at the middle height of the walls. The positions of the
extensometers are marked in Fig. 2. The extensometers
3
5 Datum (dd.mm.yy)
Accumulated convergens (mm)
01.11.97 27.10.98 22.10.99 16.10.00 11.10.01 06.10.02
0
Profile A
-5
Profile B
-10
Profile C
-15
-20
Fig. 4. Convergence measurements in the three profiles. The solid lines
stand for measurements before May 2000, while the dashed line shows
the follow-up measurements in profile C after 2000. A negative value
refers to contraction of the walls, i.e. the walls moves towards each
other.
in profiles A and B had one anchor at the farthest end
of a 2.5-m long steel rod. The measurements in profiles
A and B until May 2000 were as follows:
Profile Extensometer Deformation until
May 2000
A AE1 5 mm
AE2 0
B BE1 8 mm
BE2 0
The extensometers in profile C were 3-m long
with four anchors that were equally spaced along the
length of extensometer. The four anchors were at 3 m
(anchor 1), 2.25 m (anchor 2), 1.5 m (anchor 3) and
0.75 m (anchor 4) from the wall surface. Extensometer
CE1 was in the southern wall, Fig. 2. The measurements
on this extensometer are shown in Fig. 5. Note that
the displacements shown in the figure are relative to
anchor 1. It is seen that anchors 3 and 4 moved almost to-
gether in the whole period of measurement, indicating no
fracturing between the two anchors. These two anchors
moved slowly in the beginning but shifted to an acceler-
ating phase after September 1998. The accumulated dis-
placement increased from about 1.5 to 10 mm in a
period of about one year. After November 1999, the
movements of the anchors slowed down. Anchor 2 had
a very small displacement relative to anchor 1. The max-
imum extension displacement, up to about 10 mm, oc-
curred between anchors 3 and 2. This large amount of
displacement within such a short length (0.75 m) implied
that an open fracture might have been formed in the rock
in the depth from 1.5 m (anchor 3) to 2.25 m (anchor 2).
Extensometer CE2 was sitting in the northern wall of
the workshop. The readings on all the four anchors of
the extensometer were zero, implying that the northern
wall was stable.
4 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8

Datum (dd.mm.yy)
01.11.97 22.10.99 11.10.01 01.10.03
0
Anchor 1

Anchor 2
Deformation (mm)

-5

-10

Anchors 3 & 4
-15 CE1
4 …. 1

-20

Fig. 5. Measurements on extensometer CE1 in the southern wall in

profile C. The solid lines stand for measurements before May 2000,
while the dashed lines show the follow-up measurements after 2000.
The displacements in the diagram are relative to anchor 1, that is, the
displacement at anchor 1 is set to zero in the diagram. A negative value
refers to a movement toward the opening.

3.3. Observation of the fractures

The personnel working in the workshop made some
marks at the tips of a few large fractures on the wall with
colour pens. The marks showed that the propagation of
the fractures became slow down in 1999 and completely
ceased in the end of the year. Monitoring of a few open
fractures on the wall showed that the fractures did not
open any more after year 2000.
4. Previous mining operations in the vicinity of the
workshop
Fig. 6 is a sketch of the mined out stopes in the near
field of the workshop in a projection along the length of
the ore body. The mining activity was intensive from
1995 to 1999 in the area of the workshop. Stope 1120
was the nearest stope to the workshop. It was mined
out before excavation of the workshop in 1992. The sill
pillars above stope 1120, however, were mined out dur-
ing 1998–1999.
5. Numerical modelling
Computer program FLAC was used to examine the
influence of the mining operations underneath to the
workshop. FLAC is a two-dimensional finite differen-
tial element code for continuum materials. The simula-
tion was conducted through an excavation sequence
similar to the reality. All the mined out stopes in the
mine were back filled with waste rock and non-cemen-
ted mill tailing sands. The fill materials could bear lit-
tle load so that the mined out stopes were left open in
the model.
Fig. 6. Length-projection of the mined out stopes in the near field of
the workshop. The workshop was located about 90-m behind the
stopes.
5.1. The model
The mine stopes in question was about 400-m long
and the workshop was over 40-m long with several ac-
cess drifts around. The behaviour of the rock mass in
a vertical plane stretching from the middle of the work-
shop and to the mine stopes could be well representative
for the rock mass in between. Thus, a two-dimensional
FLAC model was built in such a plane. The model plane
coincided with the measurement profile C located in the
middle of the workshop. The size of the model was
900 · 1000 m. The size of elements in the near field of
the workshop was 0.5 m and it gradually became larger
outward from the workshop. A close-up view of the
model is similar to that shown in Fig. 1. The model con-
sisted of four excavation stages in time sequence (Fig. 1):

Stage 1: Excavation of stope A1 and the workshop.
Stope A1 was 50-m high and was located between
level 830 and 880 m. This stage simulated the mining
operations before excavation of the workshop.

Stage 2: Excavation of stope A2 that was 50-m high
above stope A1. It simulated the mining activity con-
ducted between 1995 and 1999 in the area of the
workshop.

Stage 3: Excavation of stope 1306 and the lower 25 m
of stope 1404. It simulated the current mined out
stopes under the workshop.

Stage 4: Excavation of a new stope C above stope
1306 and the upper 25 m (B) of stope 1404, which
simulated the planned operations.
 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
Two types of materials were defined in the model
according to the geological mapping shown in Fig. 3.
It was porphyry in the right side of the model and seri-
citic quartzite in the left side. The contact boundary of
the materials was located at the right side, i.e. the south-
ern wall, of the workshop at an inclination of 70.
5.2. Input data
Nyström and Board (1991) carried out a study on the
parameters of the rock mass in the Kristineberg mine.
According to their recommendations, the following val-
ues were employed for the material parameters in the
model:

Density: 2700 kg/m3.

E-modulus of the rock mass: 15 GPa.

PoissonÕs ratio of the rock mass: 0.25.

Friction angle: 30 for the sericitic quartzite and 35
for the porphyry.

Cohesion: 5 MPa for the sericitic quartzite and
10 MPa for the porphyry.

Tensile strength: zero for both rocks.
5.3. In situ stresses
According to Leijon (1991), the in situ stresses in
Kristineberg are governed by the following equations:
Fig. 7. Yield zones in the rock around the mined out stopes. The exterior circles of the stopes provide references for comparing the size of the yield
zone with the height of the stopes.
5
r1 ¼ rzz ¼ 7.6  0.054Z;
r2 ¼ rxx ¼ 6.7  0.031Z;
r3 ¼ ryy ¼ qgZ;
where r1, r2 and r3 represent the major, moderate and
minor stresses, respectively, in the rock mass. Z stands
for depth in metre. The unit of the stresses in the above
equations is MPa. r1 is horizontal and parallel with the
strike of the ore body. r2 is also horizontal, but perpen-
dicular to the strike. Field observations and back-calcu-
lations have proved that the above expressions describe
the state of the in situ stresses in the mine area quite well.
Therefore, they were used as input data of the in situ
stresses in the model. The terms rxx, ryy and rzz in the
above expressions stand for the stresses applied to the
FLAC model. rxx was applied horizontally and ryy ver-
tically, while rzz was in the out-of-plane of the model.
5.4. Results of modelling
Shear failure had been observed the dominant failure
mode in the walls of the mine stopes because of rich
chlorite in the rock. Thus, the Mohr–Coulomb failure
criterion was used in the model. Fig. 7 shows the
yield zones around the openings at three excavation
stages. Yield zone, or called disturbance zone, here refers
to a zone where the rock undergoes failure in shear. When
the workshop was excavated, the yield zone around the
workshop was very small and was not connected with
6 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
the yield zone around stope A1, Fig. 7(a). However, when
the 50-m high stope A2 was mined out, which corre-
sponded to the mining operations conducted between
1995 and 1999, the yield zone around stope A1 + A2 ex-
tended to the workshop. In other words, the rock mass
between the workshop and stope A1 + A2 failed in shear.
The yield zone surrounding the mined stopes 1306 and
1404 was quite limited because of the existence of a
25-m sill pillar in-between, Fig. 7(b). The yield zone be-
came significantly larger when the sill pillar and also a
new stope above stope 1306 were mined out. The spread-
ing of the yield zone, however, was mainly limited in the
horizontal direction, Fig. 7(c). The workshop was far
from the yield zone of the underneath stopes and, there-
fore, were not affected by the mining operations
underneath.
If an exterior circle is drawn around a mined out
opening, one can see in Fig. 7 that the yield zone is
a little bit larger than the circle. In all the excavation
stages, the size of the yield zone is approximately 1.2
times the diameter of the exterior circle around the
opening.
The modelling showed that the excavation of
A2 significantly changed the magnitude of the major
principal stress r1 in the area between the workshop
and the mining stopes. Fig. 8 shows the distribution
of the major principal stress as well as the variation
of the yield zone in the country rock surrounding
the workshop.
Yield zone
40 MPa
40
50
30
Southern
20
wall
30
40 50
(a) Before mining operations 1995-1999 (stope A2).
Fig. 8. Contours of the major principal stress r1 in the near field of the workshop before and after the mining operations 1995–1999 (stope A2 in the
model). The crosses show the directions of the principal stresses. The longer bar of the cross represents the orientation of r1, while the shorter one is
the orientation of r3. The mine stopes are located to the right of the workshop.
6. Discussion
6.1. Change in stresses around the workshop
Before the mining operation 1995–1999, the major
principal stress r1 was more or less symmetrically dis-
tributed in the rock around the workshop except for
a bit stress concentration at the upper right and lower
left corners, Fig. 8(a). The mining operation 1995–1999
led to a big change in the magnitude of the stresses
around the workshop, Fig. 8(b). It resulted in an in-
crease in r1 in the rock in the upper right and lower
left corners of the workshop, while a decrease in the
upper left and lower right corners. The change in the
stresses could solely result in damages to the workshop,
particularly in the case that a geological contact zone
was located at the southern wall of the workshop. In
accordance to previous extensometer measurements
and filed observations in the mine, however, fractures
induced by mining operations could spread out far
away from a mine stope. It was very possible therefore
that the whole rock party between the workshop and
the mine stopes was failed in shear after the mining
operation 1995–1999.
6.2. Yield zone
The yield zone (or disturbance zone) around the
workshop was quite limited when the construction of
Scale: 10 m N
20 40 MPa
30
50
20
30
40 Southern
20
wall 30
40 20
50 30
40
40
(b) After mining operations 1995-1999.
 C.C. Li / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 21 (2006) 1–8
the workshop was finished. The mining operations con-
ducted at the level of the workshop between 1995 and
1999 dramatically changed the state of stresses in the
rock mass. The result was that the yield zone around
the mined out stopes at the level of the workshop ex-
tended outward and reached the workshop finally. This
led to a rapid increase in rock deformation in the work-
shop from the end of 1998. It was noticed that the dra-
matic increase in rock deformation was only restrained
in the southern wall where the geological contact zone
lay. Thus, the geological contact zone must play some
role in leading to the instability.
The yield zone around the mine stopes beneath the
workshop would not extend upward and reach the
workshop as long as the mining activity was limited be-
low level 960 m. The yield zone would be mainly ex-
tended outward in the horizontal direction after the
planned mining operations.
At a depth of 1000 m where the in situ horizontal
stress in the cross section of the stopes was about
38 MPa, the horizontal stretch of the yield zone could
be approximately in the same order as the height of
the mined out stopes. Note that the uniaxial compressive
strength of the rock mass in question was estimated
about 17 MPa according to the data collected by
Nyström and Board (1991).
6.3. Stability assessment
Based on the extensometer measurements, there ex-
isted fracture zones in the southern wall of the work-
shop. The largest fracture might be located in a depth
of about 2 m from the wall surface. The fractures and
the dramatic change in rock deformation were caused
by the mining operations at the level of the workshop
between 1998 and 1999, even though the mine stopes
were over 90-m away from the workshop. With consid-
eration of the geological contact zone at the southern
wall and also what happened on the wall, it was inferred
that a fracture zone might had been formed along the
southern wall, Fig. 3. Even so, the current and the
planned mining operations underneath would not affect
the stability of the workshop.
The rock deformation in the workshop was moni-
tored by convergence and extensometer measurements
during the whole process of mining underneath. All
the underneath mining operations were finished in
2003. The upper 25-m ore in stope 1404 was totally
mined out, while the mining operation above stope
1306 was ceased after only about 10-m mining upward
due to the low ore grade. The monitoring results are
shown by dashed lines in Figs. 4 and 5. Both the conver-
gence and the extensometers did not capture any signif-
icant deformation during this period. The workshop was
indeed not affected by the mining operations under-
7
neath, which confirmed the assessment made on the sta-
bility of the workshop (Li, 2000).
Quartzite is normally brittle and prone to rock burst,
but the mine did not detect any seismicity in the near
filed of the ore body. That might be attributed to the
richness of chlorite in the rock mass.
7. Conclusions

The instability in the workshop was partly associated
with the geological contact zone at the southern wall.
The size of the disturbance zone around the mine
stopes was underestimated when the workshop was
designed.

The mining operations at the level of the workshop,
conducted between 1998 and 1999, might lead to a
significantly large yield zone around the stopes, which
finally reached the workshop. That occurred in the
end of 1998 when all the measurements in the work-
shop showed a rapid increase in rock deformation.

The yield zone around the underneath mine stopes
would not reach the workshop as long as the mining
was restrained below level 960 m. Thus, both the
planned mining operations in stope 1404 and above
stope 1306 would not affect the stability of the work-
shop. This conclusion has been confirmed by the
monitoring after 2000.

At a depth of about 1000 m, the horizontal stretch of
the yield zone around a mine-out stope could be
approximately in the same order as the height of
the stope.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the measurement work by
Mr. Kjell Jakobsson in the Kristineberg mine and thank
Mr. Per-Ivar Marklund, Boliden Mineral AB, Sweden,
for constructive discussions during the period of
investigation.
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