Risk assessment for the cascading failure of underground pillar sections considering interaction between pillars
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The cascading failure of underground pillar groups poses disastrous threats to miners and surface structures.
Assessing the risk of underground mining panels contributes to the prevention and control of the catastrophic failure.
To resolve the challenge in quantifying the effect of failure of a single pillar on the risk of an entire pillar group, a new
risk assessment model incorporating the stability of individual pillars and the load transfer between pillars was
proposed to determine the cascading failure of pillar groups. The load transfer process from failed pillars to adjacent
ones was effectively quantified by the relationship between transferred incremental load and transferring distance. The
influence of uncertainties of pillar strength, caused either by intrinsic variability of a single pillar (quantified by
coefficient of variation COV) or nonuniform deterioration process of pillar groups (quantified by correlation coefficient
rou), was investigated on the probability of cascading failure. Besides, risk mapping was performed on two
representative historical collapsed pillar groups using the risk evaluation method proposed to illustrate the risk level of
each pillar to trigger cascading failure. The proposed model could represent realistic load transfer process and provide
reliable risk assessment results for pillar groups. The results showed that the reliability of pillar groups is significantly
influenced by both intrinsic variability in pillar strength and intercorrelation of strength between pillars. The probability
of cascading failure increases with increasing COV, which verifies that geological uncertainties increase the risk of
pillar groups. The impact of COV on probability gradually decreases to neglectable levels as rou increases to 1, which
means that the synchronous variation of pillar strength among a pillar group can significantly compensate for the
impact of COV. The proposed approach provides a distinct perspective on understanding sudden failure of high-risk
pillars and contributing to the risk control for abandoned pillar groups.
Assessing the risk of underground mining panels contributes to the prevention and control of the catastrophic failure.
To resolve the challenge in quantifying the effect of failure of a single pillar on the risk of an entire pillar group, a new
risk assessment model incorporating the stability of individual pillars and the load transfer between pillars was
proposed to determine the cascading failure of pillar groups. The load transfer process from failed pillars to adjacent
ones was effectively quantified by the relationship between transferred incremental load and transferring distance. The
influence of uncertainties of pillar strength, caused either by intrinsic variability of a single pillar (quantified by
coefficient of variation COV) or nonuniform deterioration process of pillar groups (quantified by correlation coefficient
rou), was investigated on the probability of cascading failure. Besides, risk mapping was performed on two
representative historical collapsed pillar groups using the risk evaluation method proposed to illustrate the risk level of
each pillar to trigger cascading failure. The proposed model could represent realistic load transfer process and provide
reliable risk assessment results for pillar groups. The results showed that the reliability of pillar groups is significantly
influenced by both intrinsic variability in pillar strength and intercorrelation of strength between pillars. The probability
of cascading failure increases with increasing COV, which verifies that geological uncertainties increase the risk of
pillar groups. The impact of COV on probability gradually decreases to neglectable levels as rou increases to 1, which
means that the synchronous variation of pillar strength among a pillar group can significantly compensate for the
impact of COV. The proposed approach provides a distinct perspective on understanding sudden failure of high-risk
pillars and contributing to the risk control for abandoned pillar groups.
Date Issued
2019-12-01
Date Acceptance
2019-10-23
Citation
International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, 2019, 124
ISSN
0020-7624
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences
Volume
124
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Subjects
0905 Civil Engineering
0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy
Mining & Metallurgy
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-10-31