NorNickel’ Polar Division, Norilsk, Russia:

M. P. Sergunin, Head of Department for Geotechnical Supervision of Mining at the Geodynamic Safety Center, SerguninMP@nornik.ru
T. S. Mushtekenov, Deputy CEO of Mineral Resources

NorNickel, Moscow, Russia:
G. V. Sabyanin, Head of the Mining and Processing Management at the Industrial Engineering Department, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

NorNickel Technical Services LLC, Saint-Petersburg, Russia:
S. V. Kuzmin, Head of Geomechanics Group, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

Rock mass quality governs the choice of parameters for board gates and stopes and their support systems. Even the same lithology rock mass may have varying quality, and the correct rock mass quality assessment is therefore an obligatory condition for validation of engineering solutions. During mineral mining, rock mass behavior is assessed from a limited set of data, and predictive estimates are inaccurate, which leads to the erroneous mine support designs and stoping span parameters. Such errors can be essentially reduced by means of additional measurements performed during drilling. The analysis of vibroseis survey data obtained to determine rockburst hazard categories of rock mass shows a good agreement between measurements and the actual condition of roofs in stopes. Rocks with the lowest values of safety factor (SF) feature the highest stability, and, vice versa, rocks having the higher values of SF show the least stability indices. Stability of enclosing rock mass worsens with time owing to the change in induced jointing caused by stress redistribution in adjacent rock mass, which is also confirmed by the vibroseis measurement data. The authors describe using XML as the measurement data storage for standardized electronic data transition and proper control. The digitalization is possible without additional finance and using standard Microsoft Office utilities.

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