Today, ground control during the sinking of mine shafts is usually assisted through numerical modelling. Prior to shaft sinking, the numerical model is based on available ground information and an idealised shaft lining design. At the beginning of any shaft lining design it is accepted that the information on ground conditions contains gaps. Furthermore, the simplification of some assumptions increases the uncertainty. A common approach to deal with potential risk is to perform a sensitivity analysis and risk assessment of selected parameters and, finally, to assume the most probable ground conditions, adjusted by various safety factors. Such approach results, in most cases, in conservative shaft lining design. However, two aspects usually remain insufficiently treated: the residual risk and the potential of design optimisation. Therefore, it is important to use tools for minimization of the risk, and also to include appropriate monitoring into any design process, allowing to control all important phenomena not only during shaft sinking, but also during lifetime of the shaft. This extended abstract presents examples of tools which allow for design optimisation, operational improvements and increased construction safety.
CITATION: Weber, M, Garcia Pina, C, Bock, S, Franz, J and Henriquez, J, 2019. Automation of ground control for mine shaft sinking a step forward, in Proceedings Future Mining 2019, pp 6870 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).