Report of Investigations 9404: Geotechnical Aspects of Roof and Pillar Stability in a Georgia Talc Mine

Details

• Journal Article:
  Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, RI 9404
• Personal Author:
  Moebs, Noel N. ; Sames, Gary P.
• Description:
  The report summarizes a U.S. Bureau of Mines study on the application of geotechnology to identify and minimize ground control hazards in talc mining operations in northwest Georgia. The major ground control hazard is pillar sloughing attributed to the steeply dipping orientation of a pronounced foliation in the talc ore body. The sloughing problem, which gradually reduces the effective support area of a pillar through attrition, can be minimized by appropriate artificial support, as determined by a rock classification system, and by a more uniform pillar design. A boundary element model confirmed the advantages of using a uniform pillar design to avoid excessive loads on portions of irregular pillars. Instrumentation to measure roof convergence and pillar loading was installed at selected locations in an active talc mine but failed to detect any significant changes, suggesting that the gneiss hanging wall constitutes a strong roof that probably can support large spans between pillars and permit high extraction ratios. The interpretation also is supported by a rock classification of the hanging wall gneiss. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Mining Occupational Health Safety Talc
• Keywords:
  Mining-engineering; Columns-supports; Roofs; Loads-forces; Engineering-geology; Underground-mining; Underground-supporting; Room-and-pillar-mining; Mining-geology; Talc
• Source:
  Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, RI 9404, 1992 Jan; :1-29
• Series:
  NIOSH Numbered Publications   ; Mining Publications  
• Subseries:
  Report of Investigations
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Georgia ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRC - Pittsburgh Research Center
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  35 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10001258
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB92-186048
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1992
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8d58ed23b4cd2863e6ab370fbf8dcdd3389e60f2d99b42e8db6c9be1b97cfd926eb59c316f993339f982c5d60a4f996d55a814a641f043a4620d0b3b107b9f62
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/10147/cdc_10147_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 8.55 MB ]