Revegetation Trials on Hard Rock Mining Disturbances

A New Concept for Selective Mechanical Mining of Hard Rock

Over the last several decades mechanical mining machines have developed into highly productive, light weight, mobile machines which are able to economically mine many soft rock ore bodies. Due to the utilization of disc cutters Tunnel Boring Machines, with great mass and limited mobility, have developed the ability to cut the hardest rocks at high production rates. Technological advancements ha...

Prediction of hard rock TBM penetration rate based on Data Mining techniques

The aim of this work is to use Data Mining tools to develop models for the prediction of hard rock tunnel boring machine (TBM) penetration rate (ROP). A database published by Yagiz (2008) was used to develop these models. The parameters of the database were the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), an index used to quantify the brittleness and toughness and denominated peak slope index (PSI), th...

Pillar Design in the Hard Rock Mines of South Africa

This paper gives an overview of the difficulties associated with the design of hard rock pillars in South African mines. Recent examples of large scale pillar collapses in South Africa suggest that these were caused by weak partings which traversed the pillars. Currently two different methods are used to determine the strength of pillars, namely, empirical equations derived from back analyses o...

Electric LHDs in Underground Hard Rock Mining: A Cost/Benefit Analysis

Iron Ore Rock Recognition Trials