D.F. Malan

[ 1 ] - 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...