Design optimization of barricades made of waste rocks

Stope backfilling with mining wastes has witnessed an increasing trend in the mining industry. Prior to filling underground stopes, barricades must be constructed at the base near the entrance of the stopes to retain backfill slurry. Over the past years, a number of barricade failures have been reported. The consequences associated with a barricade failure were usually serious, including flooding of drifts and working spaces, economic loss, personal injury and even life loss. Barricades should be properly designed. Traditionally, barricades are made of bricks, timber, concrete blocks or steel mesh with shotcrete. The construction of these types of barricade is long and expensive. In Canada, the construction of barricades made of waste rocks becomes more and more popular because it is faster, easier and much more economic. Analytical solutions have also been proposed by Li and coworkers. However, they have not been fully validated by experimental results. In addition, shotcrete on the downstream slope of barricades may be needed to prevent ingression of slurried backfill or enhance the stability. There is no solution available to design the shotcrete. In this project, a solution will be proposed for the design of shotcrete on waste rock barricades.

Faculty Supervisor:

Li Li

Student:

Partner:

Alamos Gold

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Mining

University:

Polytechnique Montréal

Program: