The design of underground mine roadways (tunnels) requires a detailed understanding of the in situ stressfield, the rock failure modes, the performance characteristics of reinforcement or support members and assessment of the stress state about the roadway. Definition of these factors, together with monitoring of roadway behaviour during both development and extraction operations, allows rational design procedures to be undertaken.
The design approach utilised computational techniques to simulate the behaviour of the strata about the opening for a range of anticipated stressfields and various reinforcement options. Field validation studies are conducted to confirm the design expectations.