Revisiting Rockfall Catch Bench Design Criteria: Initial Rockfall Testing Results from the Golden Chest Mine, ID

Details

• Personal Author:
  Armstrong J ; Bourgeois J ; Brackebusch A ; Sbai S ; Stopka C ; Sweet D ; Warren S
• Description:
  Rockfall in open pit mines presents a continuous hazard to mine workers and is typically mitigated by designing catch benches to empirically determined widths. Industry geotechnical engineers have expressed interest in revisiting traditional bench design guidelines to better balance rockfall catchment performance and pit economics, or at least to quantify the performance of current methods. To begin this process, preliminary rockfall testing was conducted at the Golden Chest Mine in the USA, recording catch bench performance and runout distance according to rock size and shape. This paper presents preliminary rockfall testing results and lays out a path forward to evaluate and quantify the performance of the current state of practice in bench design. This work represents the start of a five-year Highwall Safety project to be conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Spokane Mining Research Division (SMRD) in collaboration with industry recognized professionals and other research institutions. The overarching goal of the rockfall testing campaign is to revisit and possibly revise bench design guidelines to better balance rockfall catchment performance requirements and risk tolerance with pit economics. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Geotechnical Engineering Mining Industry Open Pit Mining Rock Falls Slope Stability
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Publisher:
  University of Arizona's Geotechnical Center of Excellence
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Arizona ; Colorado ; Idaho ; Nevada ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 8 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  SMRD - Spokane Mining Research Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-16
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20066776
• Citation:
  International Slope Stability 2022 Symposium, October 17-21, 2022, Tucson, Arizona. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona's Geotechnical Center of Excellence, 2022 Oct; :1-16
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2023
• NORA Priority Area:
  Mining
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  International Slope Stability 2022 Symposium, October 17-21, 2022, Tucson, Arizona
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:34dd8764712d977ccedf81b89c6943b29e98d4348362ca7af029ddd9caee21dcc2e6a737d66e1e528958a666456ccdc0afcbef5067285678f5ace22d23018f74
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/215575/cdc_215575_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.61 MB ]