Show/Hide Menu
Hide/Show Apps
Logout
Türkçe
Türkçe
Search
Search
Login
Login
OpenMETU
OpenMETU
About
About
Open Science Policy
Open Science Policy
Open Access Guideline
Open Access Guideline
Postgraduate Thesis Guideline
Postgraduate Thesis Guideline
Communities & Collections
Communities & Collections
Help
Help
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Guides
Guides
Thesis submission
Thesis submission
MS without thesis term project submission
MS without thesis term project submission
Publication submission with DOI
Publication submission with DOI
Publication submission
Publication submission
Supporting Information
Supporting Information
General Information
General Information
Copyright, Embargo and License
Copyright, Embargo and License
Contact us
Contact us
Determination of optimum overall slope angle for an open pit iron mine
Download
index.pdf
Date
2015
Author
Akdağ, Selahattin
Metadata
Show full item record
Item Usage Stats
346
views
154
downloads
Cite This
Currently, vast majority of the mineral extraction is conducted by open pit mining operations. With the improvements in mining industry, mines have become progressively deeper leading to slope stability problems. Therefore, slope stability assessment has gained more significance for geotechnical engineering. Moreover, deepening the open pit mines has revealed the necessity of designing optimized slopes with regard to the economic viability. Steepening the ultimate slope of an open pit as much as possible minimizes the amount of waste rock which results in reduced production cost under a prerequisite of ensuring the mining safety conditions. Hence, slope stability evaluation is important to keep the balance between safety of slopes and economic efficiency. In this study, optimum overall slope angle for open pit mines in Bizmişen region by conducting slope stability analyses is aimed to be determined. Additionally, the study presents the slope design chart constituted for iron ore mines in Bizmişen region to contribute the further designs of open pits. Within the scope of this research, geotechnical fieldwork was carried out to gain geotechnical relevant data about the rock mass characteristics around the mine sites. Q-system, Rock Mass Rating (RMR) method and Geological Strength Index (GSI) system were used to characterize the dominating lithological units observed in the field. Besides, GSI ratings were assigned directly by field observations for the lithological layers within the mine sites. Moreover, mechanical properties of the rock mass around the region was obtained by laboratory experiments conducted on the cored samples taken from the exploration drillings and rock blocks taken from the mine site. Afterwards, according to the mining plans, the most critical cross-section within the mine site was determined by considering the instability conditions and for the deepest part of the open pit. Slope stability analyses were performed for various overall slope angle schemes with the combined use of limit equilibrium methods and numerical modeling which increases the reliability and accuracy of the stability analyses. Due to the topography and the orebody orientation, mining depth differs around the open pit. Therefore, optimum overall slope angle for varying mining depths were also determined by considering the results of slope stability analyses. These analyses were carried out to determine the factor of safety (FOS) and strength reduction factor (SRF) values that are the indicators of slope stability. The results from the limit equilibrium methods and numerical modeling were compared, and optimized safe overall slope angles, that satisfy minimum FOS and SRF values of 1.2, were estimated for different mining depths. Additionally, slope performance chart has been created for the region by considering the overall slope angles and corresponding mining depth. The developed chart can also be applicable for the iron ore mines in Turkey showing the same geotechnical characteristics with Bizmişen region.
Subject Keywords
Strip mining.
,
Rock slopes.
,
Iron mines and mining.
,
Slopes (Physical geography).
URI
http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12619143/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/24987
Collections
Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis
Suggestions
OpenMETU
Core
Review of Trend Tests for Detection of Wear Out Period for Mining Machineries
Gölbaşı, Onur; Demirel, Nuray (2015-04-17)
Machinery systems are extensively utilized in all mining stages from beginning to end of ore production. They are capital-intensive systems and substantial amount of money is spent annually to keep their functionalities in desired levels. Therefore, implementation of effective maintenance strategy has a vital importance to prevent unexpected breakdowns due to failures and to minimize operational cost. These maintenance strategies can be constituted effectively regarding functional and structural dependencie...
Risk assessment by fault tree analysis of methane explosions in Turkish hard coal enterprises underground mines
Mevsim, Rıdvan; Demirel, Nuray; Department of Mining Engineering (2016)
Mining is one of the most hazardous industries in the world. Among all mining professions, underground coal mining has the highest occupational accident and disease rates. Methane explosion appears as the major accident type which results in severe loss of life and property in underground coal mining. Including underground coal mines, preparing a practicable risk assessment is the primary step to sustain a safe workplace environment. The main objective of this study is to specify the root causes of methane ...
Investigation of stress distribution in a dragline bucket using finite element analysis
Gölbaşı, Onur; Demirel, Nuray; Department of Mining Engineering (2011)
Overburden stripping is one of the essential activities in open-cast mines before starting the ore production. Due to the economic advantages, dragline is a widely utilized machinery in the overburden excavation. These earthmovers carry out the earthmoving process with dragging, hoisting and dumping actions of the bucket. Dragline excavator’s efficiency is critically important, since poor performance of a dragline in the mine site directly affects the total efficiency of ore production. Therefore, productiv...
Preliminary estimation of rock mass strength using diamond bit drilling operational parameters
BASARIR, H.; Karpuz, Celal (2016-03-03)
In many mining engineering applications such as prospecting, development, production and grouting, diamond bit drilling is widely used due to high penetration rate, core recovery and its ability to drill with less deviation. It has been well known that the operational parameters of diamond bit drilling are closely related with rock mass strength properties. One of the most widely discussed subjects in drilling is the possibility of using diamond drill bit operational parameters for preliminary estimation of...
Stability investigation of Eti Copper Mine tailings dam using finite element analysis
Tanrıseven, Esra Nur; Bilgin, Hasan Aydın; Department of Mining Engineering (2012)
In mining industry, waste storage is a very prominent issue; in this respect, safety of storage structures is one of the leading problems in the industry. Most of the tailings dams require remedial measures, throughout their lifespan to increase their reliability. The objective of the study is to investigate stability problems of formerly constructed but newly raised Eti Copper Mine tailings dam and alternative dam geometries for future raises. Plenty of methods were developed to analyze the reliability of ...
Citation Formats
IEEE
ACM
APA
CHICAGO
MLA
BibTeX
S. Akdağ, “Determination of optimum overall slope angle for an open pit iron mine,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2015.