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J.A. Hudson
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, UK
ABSTRACT: Geological factors on both the small and large scales are of utmost importance in quarry
design: in particular, the intact rock anisotropy, the rock fractures, the in situ rock stress, and the hydrogeological regime can have major impacts. Examples of the influences of these factors on quarry geometry are presented, including the effect of microstructural anisotropy in granite, sliding on pre-existing joints and faults,
and the development of exfoliation joints during quarrying. Knowledge of these factors and appropriate adjustment of the quarry design to account for them leads to significant safety and financial benefits.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition of the term quarry
Quarry: An open air excavation from which stone
for building or other purposes is obtained by cutting,
blasting, or the like. Oxford English Dictionary.
There is sometimes a problem concerning the exact meanings of the words quarry and mine, i.e.
whether the underground extension of a quarry is
still termed a quarry or whether such an extension
should be called a mine. In the literature, both terms
are used, and so there is no need to be pedantic about
the precise usage. But note that this paper relates to
the planning and operation of surface and underground quarries, but not to remediation of disused
quarries.
1.2 The purpose and content of this paper
When designing any rock engineering project, we
have to be concerned about risk: we need to be able
to predict the future when designing a facility but the
reality related to the design assumptions may be differentand hence the risk. For quarry design there
are many issues, ranging from quality of the stone,
through excavation techniques, transport systems,
safety and financial aspects to environmental issues.
In this paper, the emphasis is on the significant
influence of geological factors on quarry design. The
most fundamental geological consideration is whether the rock is suitable for its intended purpose and
whether there is sufficient grade of this rock type to
enable extraction over the required life of the quarry.
But there are many other geological and related rock
mechanics aspects, such as the influences of
intact rock,
rock fractures,
in situ rock stress, and
water flow through rock fractures.
These geological factors are reviewed and suitable approaches to reduce the related risks are recommended. The awareness of these factors and the
implementation of appropriate extraction procedures
to avoid or at least mitigate their effects will enhance
quarrying operations and have associated financial
benefits.
1.3 The context for the paper
This symposium, the 1st International Conference on
Applied Empirical Design Methods in Mining, is an
ISRM Specialised Conference organized by Dr Antonio Samaniego through the ISRM Design Methodology Commission. In the ISRM Presidential period
20072011, the Design Methodology Commissions
work was concentrated on rock engineering design
and construction and how these aspects could be audited through the use of Protocol Sheets (Feng &
Hudson, 2011). In the current Presidential period
20112015, the Design Methodology Commissions
work is focused on rock engineering risk and hence
the emphasis is on the risk elements occurring in design and construction. One of these is awareness of
the many geological issues that can cause risks in
design, whether the project is surface based, underground based, or both.
So, although there is a wide spectrum of potential
geological influences, it is beneficial here to concentrate on the four geology-related aspects of intact
rock, fractures, stress and waterbecause these govern the majority of risks.
2 INTACT ROCK MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
The nature and suitability of the intact rock for its intended purpose will have been established when the
quarry was first envisaged and it may not appear at
first sight that that mechanical properties have any
significance in relation to the overall geometry of the
quarry. However, note the quarry geometry in Figure
1.
Figure 3. The mining technique involves creating flame-cut release slots in the vertical hardway plane at each end of the
block and then blasting closely spaced boreholes drilled in the
vertical rift and horizontal grain planes.
Figure 4. Flame cut granite block surface following the extraction method illustrated in Figure 3.
Thus, in this granite quarry case example, the realisation that the intact rock has a threeway orthotropic micro-anisotropy and the utilisation of this
feature have not only helped significantly in enabling
easier extraction but also determined the overall geometry of the quarry.
3 ROCK FRACTURES
3.1 The nature of rock fractures
Rock masses contain pre-existing fractures: joints
(which have been formed by tensile stress) and faults
(which have been formed by shear stress). Hydraulic
pressure may also have played a role in the formation of fractures. Additionally, the fractures have
usually been formed during several episodes in geological time. In particular, later fractures will tend to
terminate at older fractures, see Figure 6. This means
that the fractures are generally not randomly located
and orientated (although the assumption of randomness can be a useful in some types of modelling).
Figure 11. Sub-vertical fractures which can cause toppling failure at a granodiorite quarry in the UK.
In some cases, pervasive pre-existing rock fractures can have a significant effect on the quarrying of
rock for sculptural and building purposes, see Figure
4
Figure 12. Marble quarry in Portugal where pre-existing fractures have interfered with the block quarrying technique.
Figure 15. Exfoliation fractures and jointing/faulting in a granitic rock mass at the Grabinex quarry in Strzegom, Poland.
cases and perhaps counter-intuitively, one of the horizontal stress components has the greatest value.
This pre-existing, naturally occurring, stress field
may have little effect on the quarrying operations,
but sometimes it can have a significant effects, e.g.
when buckling occurs on the quarry surfaces, i.e.,
breakage as the surface strata are removed and hence
the overburden load is removed, Figure 16. This
phenomenon is discussed, for example, in Steck
(1999) and Damjanac & Fairhurst (2009), the former
of whom states that, Quarry floor buckles are considered to be modern features, caused by the relief of
confining pressure by the removal of overlying layers of rock/overburden. Pop-ups, on the other hand,
are generally considered to be older features, related
to the removal of glacial ice loads.
Section 2, due to the Carrara marbles tectonometamorphic deformation history, it also has three
principal planes of weakness: the verso, secondo and
contro planes. Additionally, in some locations, the
marble contains a high in situ stress field, especially
at the Carlone quarry (Coli et al., 2010). The authors
note that, There are two types of rockburst, i.e. delay rockburst and instantaneous rockburst. The rockburst which occurred in Carrara marble laboratory
samples belongs to the delay rockburst corresponding to the stress concentration after excavation in the
field. The laboratory test shows a critical stress of
max= 50 MPa for the rockburst of Carrara marble.
Figure 16. When a new quarry floor is exposed and the overburden load thus removed, a pre-existing horizontal stress can
cause the surface slab to buckle.
Figure 18. The Carlone quarry in Italy: (from Coli et al., 2010).
Figure 19. Rockburst during development work for the underground Carlone quarry in the Carrara marble, Italy, from Coli et
al. (2010).
6 CONCLUSIONS
The geological factors discussed in relation to quarry
design have been
intact rock properties,
rock fractures,
in situ rock stress, and
the presence of water.
The implications for quarry design are straightforward, although the implementation of these will
depend on whether the quarry is for aggregate material or for building stone.
For a quarry excavating building stone, anisotropy in the intact rock can have a major influence on
the quarry layout and excavation techniques, as was
illustrated earlier in the paper for the Grabinex quarry case example. However, for an aggregate quarry,
any anisotropy in the intact rock is unlikely to be of
major concern.
The potential for rock fractures to enable planar
and wedge sliding or toppling to occur is important
for bench and overall quarry stability. Once these
possibilities have been evaluated, the plan shape of
the quarry can be optimised to reduce major intabilities by adopting a defensive layoutin particular by
using an elliptical plan shape, rather than a circular
one. A circular quarry will have quarry faces in all
directions; however, an elliptical quarry can reduce
the instabilities by arranging for the worst potential
cases to be located at the regions of greatest curvature, hence minimising their occurrence.
If the quarry is located in a region of high rock
stress, a surface quarry can suffer from surface strata
buckling (Figure 16), but this is a rather rare phenomenon. On the other hand, the rooms in an underground quarry can suffer from spalling and even
rockbursts, as has occurred at the Cararra quarry in
Italy. As a general principle, it is best to orientate the
long axis of underground excavations parallel to the
direction of maximum principal stress, and hence reduce the stress concentrations around the openings.
The presence of water can be difficult in some
quarry situations necessitating continuous pumping,
but establishing the presence of any major water
bearing fractures in the rock mass beforehand may
enable the overall quarry geometry to be designed
together with grouting of the major fractures to minimise the water inflow.
All these factors are readily determinable from a
geological study of a proposed quarry site and the
consequential defensive strategies are straightforward. It is therefore strongly recommended that the
geological factors are established and the associated
quarry design implemented to reduce the possibilities of major quarry problems. The use of the geological information leads to good engineering practice and the associated economic benefits,
Acknowledgements
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