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Comprehensive Back Analysis Techniques for Assessing Factors Affecting

Open Stope Performance

Conference Paper · November 2006

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Peter Cepuritis Ernesto Villaescusa

Stantec WA School of Mines - Curtin University Australia
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 BACK ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES FOR ASSESSING OPEN STOPE PERFORMANCE

P. Cepuritis1 and E. Villaescusa1

ABSTRACT
A methodology and a number of software tools have been developed to assess the operational
and geotechnical factors affecting the performance of open stoping operations. Open stope
performance is generally measured by the ability to achieve maximum extraction with
minimal dilution. The paper describes the tools and techniques for collecting and analysing
common factors affecting performance, such as drill and blast, development undercutting,
stress induced damage, rock mass quality, and large scale geological features. Common back
analysis techniques, such as empirical stability graph methods, are limited in their ability to
identify and quantify the relative contributions of the various factors that influence
excavation performance. The paper proposes a methodology that enables the evaluation
of a variety of contributing factors simultaneously. The proposed methodology also enables
the evaluation of spatial variability in various parameters under consideration. Example data
has been collected and analysed with some results presented.

INTRODUCTION
The Western Australian School of Mines (WASM) is currently conducting research into
optimising the design and extraction sequence of open stoping excavations in highly stresses
rock masses. A large component of this study will involve back analysis of stoping activities
from a number of participating mines. In this regard, the project initially aims to identify and
assess the contributing factors on large excavation performance. As part of this research, a
number of techniques and software tools have been used to assist in the back analysis of
stoping performance at a number of open stoping operations in Australia. Open stope
performance is generally measured by the ability to achieve maximum extraction with
minimal dilution. Hence, the success of the open stoping method relies on the stability of
large (mainly un-reinforced) stope walls and crowns as well as the stability of any exposed fill
masses (Villaescusa, 2004). The success or performance of an open stope can therefore be
judged on the actual outcome versus the planned outcome, in terms of the final volume,
tonnage and grade of material extracted, and the timeliness of extraction, compared to the
planned design and schedule.

OVER-BREAK AND UNDER-BREAK

The two main physical criteria for assessing stope performance are;
• the over-break volume, and
• the under-break volume
Over-break refers to the volume of material excavated in excess of the planned stoping
volume (or “reference” volume), and under-break refers to the volume of intact rock material
left unexcavated relative to the planned stoping volume.

1
WA School of Mines, PMB 22, Kalgoorlie, WA, 6430
Reference Volume
The “reference” volume usually consists of the stope design and in-place development,
however, this may need to be modified if any changes were implemented during excavation.
For example, additional holes may have been drilled and fired that were not on the production
plan or, conversely, drilled holes were not fired due to bridging/blockages or due to a decision
to leave a pillar. The “reference” volume is typically represented by a primitive triangulated
irregular network (TIN) wireframe model in mine planning software.

Cavity Monitoring Surveys

To obtain a quantitative measure stope performance, final excavated volumes need to be
obtained and compared to the stope design boundaries. Cavity Monitoring System (CMS)
surveys have been a well established method for surveying inaccessible open cavities in
underground mining operations for well over 10 years. The CMS was developed jointly by
Noranda Technology Centre (NTC) and OPTECH Systems, Canada (Miller et al, 1992). This
system is widely used in Australia's underground operations, especially in Western Australia
(Jarosz and Shepherd, 2000).

Final Stope Void Volume

A typical CMS stope survey can generate in the order of 30,000-60,000 data points. This is an
extremely large amount of data to process, and in most cases contains a significant amount of
redundant data. This is especially apparent in close proximity to the CMS set-up, where
excavations are typically ‘over-sampled’. In addition, some regular surface features, such as
relatively uniform flat planes, which may only required to be represented by a few points, can
also be over-sampled. In order to conduct meaningful post-processing volume calculations,
this data needs to be filtered down to a practical level, without unduly misrepresenting the
final void geometry. The general process for developing a final stope void volume generally
consists of the following;
• Data acquisition utilising CMS survey techniques,
• Data filtering of redundant points, including CMS outlier/spike identification and removal,
• CMS amalgamation (where required), involving merging/combining a number of CMS
surveys taken from a variety of sites, and
• Final void modelling of CMS data
The final void volume generally consists of generating a TIN wireframe “model” in mine
planning software, based on the CMS survey data. Common practice is to generate slices
through the raw CMS data, filter the slices to reduce redundant points and re-generate the
volume. In some circumstances, this process can severely affect the precision and accuracy of
final void model. In addition, the treatment of “blind-spots” or shadow areas, as well as
presence of broken material or rill in the stope will significantly impact on the accuracy of the
final void shape.

Calculation and reporting of Over-break and Under-break

Over-break and under-break volumes are generally calculated by intersecting the “reference”
volume with the final stope void volume utilising mine planning software, typically using
triangulation intersections of the relevant TIN wireframes. Depending on the relative
configuration and aspect ratios of individual triangles within the wireframe models, errors
may occur during triangulation intersection process (principally due to floating point
precision), resulting in an unsolvable volume intersection.
Tonnage and grade values of dilution and ore loss can also be calculated utilising the
“reference” and final stope void volumes in conjunction with a block model of reserve grades
and densities, including backfill materials. These data can then be stored in a database for
further reconciliation reporting and presentation (Morin, 2006).

FACTORS AFFECTING STOPE PERFORMANCE

A brief summary of major factors controlling open stope performance are provided below
(after Clark and Pakalnis, 1997);
• stope geometry (size, shape, orientation)
• location of existing development (i.e. under-cutting)
• rock mass characteristics
• stress conditions
• large scale geological structures
• rock reinforcement
• drill and blast processes
• time dependency

In order to assess the influence of each of these factors on stope performance, it is necessary
to be able to adequately characterise and/or quantify the factors both prior to and during
excavation process. This requires all personnel involved in the design and production stages
to record relevant information, such that it can be reviewed on completion of the excavation
(Villaescusa, 1998).

Stope Performance Reviews

Stope performance reviews act as a technical audit to the stope design process (Villaescusa,
2004). Aside from being an historical record of the achieved physicals (i.e. volume, tones and
grade), an important purpose of these reviews is to understand and assess the factors that
affect final stope performance. These findings can then be used to develop improved design
and engineering tools for optimising stope and pillar design, layout and sequencing, as well as
implementation practices. In this regard, it would be beneficial to develop a database of these
major factors, in conjunction with the physicals obtained from CMS analyses.

BACK ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Interest has been shown in trying to understand the relative influence of each of the factors
mentioned above for use in optimising the planning and design of open stopes. A variety of
back analysis techniques have been explored. For example, Wiles (2006) uses back analysis
results from linear elastic numerical modelling to indicate the reliability of stress-related
damage and failure criteria, Suorineni et al (1999) investigated the influence of the location
and orientation of fault structures on open stope over-break using 2D hybrid boundary-finite
element studies, statistical and empirical stability graph techniques have been used by Stewart
(2005) who attempts to relate blast hole design, stress damage and relaxation to the amount of
over-break in narrow vein stopes, and Wang (2004) looks at the effect of undercutting on
over-break. These approaches may be appropriate if the dominate mechanism can be
identified, however, they may not be considered comprehensive as each factor is investigated
separately, with the influence of other contributing factors not readily accounted for. A
methodology, therefore, is required to account for and assess the relative influence of each
individual factor on stope performance.

PROPOSED METHODOLOGIES
A methodology is proposed to assist in the confirming, or otherwise, of hypotheses intimating
the relative contribution of various factors and their influence on open stope performance.
This methodology can utilise, for example, the results of;
• candidate criteria developed from numerical modelling,
• over-break and under-break analysis,
• modelling of large scale geological structures,
• rock mass quality modelling,
The methodology relies on the ability to query the volume of rock around the excavation
under analysis to select regions fitting various candidate criteria thought to contribute to over-
break. The advantage of this system to other empirical approaches lies in the ability to test
various candidate criteria simultaneously and also account for spatial variability of
component parameters.

Implicit Surfaces
The proposed methodology involves fitting implicit surfaces, defined by radial basis functions
(Carr et al, 2001), to candidate criteria and other features of the rock mass. The use of
mathematical radial basis functions allow for relatively complex mathematical intersections
and/or unions of these implicit surfaces or volumes. Implicit surfaces can be used in a variety
of back analysis processes, for example, over-break and under-break analysis, where they are
superior compared to the known issues associated with triangulation intersections. For
example, Figure 1 shows the highly detailed implicit surface model, which honours all CMS
data points, compared with a traditional filtered triangulation model. Due to the highly
detailed nature of the output, it can also assist in identifying localisation of over-break or
under-break. This information can provide information on the morphology, extent and nature
of over-break. For example, the morphology can indicate whether the over-break was
localised and tetrahedral in shape, possibly indicating a small structurally controlled wedge-
type failure, or arciform and protracted, possibly indicating stress-related failure and/or
subsequent “arching” response.

a) b)
Figure 1. Design stope volume (dark grey) and CMS (light grey) for a) triangulated final void volume and b)
final void volume based on implicit surfaces.
Implicit surfaces can be used to model, for example, large-scale geological structures and
their control on rock mass quality and subsequent influence on the levels of overbreak. Figure
2a shows two fault structures modelled from geological data, highlighting the occurrence of
major over-break on the stope wall with its intersection with “Fault B”. Figure 2b shows the
distribution of rock mass quality, in this case fracture frequency interpolated from borehole
data, on the over-break surface. Figure 2c shows how the intersection of the two fault surfaces
locally controls an increase in fracture frequency (isosurface value of 12 fractures per metre)
in the area highlighted by the circle shown in Fig. 2b.
isosurface

Fault faults
B

Fault
A
a) b) c)
Figure 2. Results of geological modelling of a) two faults b) contours of fracture frequency on over-break
surface, and c) interaction of faults, rock mass quality and over-break.

Candidate Criteria
The results from numerical modelling can also be incorporated into the back analysis
methodology. Candidate surfaces based on say, a maximum shear stress criteria and/or
confinement-based criteria, can be displayed alongside other candidate criteria and over-break
data. Figure 3a shows the results of linear elastic numerical modelling represented as implicit
isosurfaces, together with over-break. Figure 3b shows contours of low confinement on the
over-break surface, whilst Fig. 3c shows maximum shear stress, plotted as both contours on
the over-break surface and as an isosurface.

Isosurface
(σ3=0.75MPa)
Isosurface
(τmax=20MPa)
a) b) c)
Figure 3. Results of numerical modelling showing a) minor principal stress isosurfaces b) contours of minor
principal stress on over-break surface, and c) isosurface of maximum shear stress and contoured on over-break
surface.

Volumetric Queries
The implicit surfaces can then be used to generate queries within the rock mass based on
intersections and unions of volumes (similar to Boolean “AND” and “OR” operations,
respectively). For example, based on the data presented above, it is possible to select a
volume of the rock mass around the excavation based on stress-based criteria and/or rock
mass quality and/or distance to a prospective geological structure. In this example, a query
was constructed using the following criteria;
• Maximum shear stresses greater than 15MPa,
• Distance less than 10m from “Fault B”, and
• Fracture frequency greater than 7
The resulting volume is shown in Fig. 4 and provides a very good correlation between the
query volume and the location of over-break experienced during mining. Although “Fault B”
transects the entire stope, Fig. 4b also highlights that its presence alone is not an indication
that over-break will occur. Figure 4 shows that intersection and union functions of implicit
surfaces can be used as a valuable tool in determining the relative influence of various
candidate criteria on stope performance.

Beyond limit
of rock mass
model

a) b)
Figure 4. Results of intersection of multiple candidate criteria for stope AP02 looking a) north west and b) south
east.

Candidate Query Reliability

Using an approach described by Wiles (2006), understanding uncertainty in observational
back analyses can assist in determining the reliability of any forward analyses. Wiles (2006)
describes the procedure for determining the reliability of candidate stress-based strength
criteria and its use in failure prediction. This approach can also be incorporated into this
methodology by generating implicit isosurfaces of various prediction criteria, at a number of
values, which could be used to represent probabilities of failure.

Stope Performance Database

Data generated from the tools above can be linked to a purpose designed stope performance
database, along with CMS derived physicals and qualitative stope performance information.
The database contains relevant fields for quantitative and qualitative information in the
following areas;
• stope details,
• design details,
• rock mass and boundary condition data,
• drilling and blast,
• CMS and performance,
• rock reinforcement, and
• extraction and filling data.

The qualitative information, mainly derived from the results of stope performance reviews,
provides an important role in confirmation or verification of the impact of the various factors
indicated using the volumetric querying techniques described in preceding sections. A brief
overview of the methodology for incorporating the data in a back analysis is provided in Fig.
5.

Figure 5. Framework for back analysis of stope performance utilising numerical modelling, volumetric queries
and stope performance database.

Additional Software Tools

The software tools include existing proprietary tools as well as a number of tools developed
by WASM. The tools developed by WASM consist of a number of database development
applications and scripting tools to existing mine planning software, such as Surpac Vision.
Examples include;
• Tool for quickly ascertaining geometric properties of stope surfaces,
• Tools to generate the production of the following over-break and under-break data;
o Depth (i.e. perpendicular distance to reference volume) of over-break and
under-break
o Volume of over-break and under-break, and
o Area of over-break and under-break.
• Tools for querying and graphing various stope performance data.
STOPE PERFORMANCE CASE STUDY
The systems developed at WASM have been used to back analyse stope performance data
from Barrick Australia’s Kanowna Belle Gold Mine (KBGM). Open stoping operations at the
KBGM commenced around January 1998. The mine is divided into four (4) main mining
areas, each with distinct open stoping mining methods and sequencing;
• Block A:
o Large multi-lift stopes, Primary/Secondary centre-out sequence
o Shallow to medium depth, faulted footwall
• Block B:
o Bottom-up, downhole benching, central retreat
o Narrow ore widths
• Block C:
o Bottom-up, pyramidal sequence
o Initially double lift primary/secondary 1-3-5 pyramidal sequence with medium
sized stopes
o Continuous pyramidal sequence (after July 2003), medium single lift stopes
o Faulted hangingwall
• Block D:
o Bottom-up, continuous pyramidal sequence, small single lift stopes, also
mining panels from hangingwall to footwall
o Depths in excess of 1000m, faulted hangingwall

The location of the main mining areas and sequence is summarised in Figure 6. Analyses to
date have concentrated on Block A and Block C. Even simple queries from the stope
performance database can be of benefit to understanding the controls on performance. For
example, simple analysis of volumetric data for both mining blocks, is shown in Fig. 7.
Figure 7a, shows the exposed area of overbreak on the stope wall surface with respect to the
entire area of the stope wall surface. Figure 7a indicates that majority of over-break occurring
on stope wall surfaces does not affect the entire surface. Although stope surfaces are larger in
Block A, it shows that there is significant variability in the surface area of over-break in both
mining areas. This figure indicates that, although rock mass and stress conditions are different
between the mining blocks, the observed response of over-break within each mining block, in
terms of surface expression, can be quite varied, ranging from localised over-break (i.e. small
area of over-break) to over-break occurring almost across the entire stope surface.

Figure 7b displays a plot of average depth of over-break (volume of over-break divided by

area of over-break exposed) versus stope wall surface area. Intuitively, given the same rock
mass, boundary and implementation conditions, one would expect the depth of over-break to
increase as the stope wall surface increases, however, the data highlights the potential chaotic
or unpredictable “yielded” response of over-break, or “fall-off”. This behaviour, together with
the data shown in Fig. 7a, may explain why empirical techniques which relate the normalised
amount of dilution (to stope surface area) with rock mass classifications, such as the ELOS
stability graph technique (Clark and Pakalnis, 1997), often show poor correlations.
 Surface at 10360mRL Open Pit Block A
Primaries
Jan ’98 - Dec ‘99
Secondaries
Jan ’00 - Mar ’01

BLOCK A
10000mRL

BLOCK B

9800mRL

BLOCK C

9600mRL

Blocks B, C and D
Apr ’01 - May ‘02
May ’02 - Jul ‘03
BLOCK D
May ’02 – May ‘03

Jun ’03 - Jun ‘03

Jul ’03 - Nov ‘05 9400mRL

Nov ’05 - Present

Figure 6. Long section of Kanowna Belle underground operations showing main mining areas and stoping
sequence.
6000 10
Block A Block A
Block C 9
Block C
5000
8
Average depth of over-break (m)
Exposed area of over-break (m )
2

7
4000

3000 5

2000
3

2
1000

0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
2 2
Stope wall surface area (m ) Stope wall surface area (m )
a) b)
Figure 7. a) Plot of exposed area of over-break versus stope wall surface area and b) average depth of over-break
versus stope wall surface area.
Figure 7b does, however, highlight the different response, in terms of average depth of over-
break with stope wall surface area, between the two mining blocks. In general, Block C stope
surfaces exhibited deeper zones of over-break to Block A stopes. Block C stopes show high
variability in average depths of over-break, with significant amounts of over-break even with
relatively small stope wall surface areas. Conversely, Block A stopes generally show no
increase of average depth of over-break with increasing stope surface area, with depths of
over-break generally below 2m. This would indicate increased stopes sizes may have been
achievable without significantly increasing the amount of dilution.

Block C data was investigated further and separated into primary and secondary stopes. To
provide consistency end wall data was removed from the primary stope data set, as end walls
in the secondary stopes were not evaluated (being fill). The resulting data is plotted in Fig. 8.
This figure shows that over-break in secondary stopes, generally occurs over larger areas of
the stope surface, possibly indicating the effects of stress and/or blast damage.
3000
Primary Stopes
Secondary Stopes

2500
Exposed Area of Over-break (m )
2

2000

1500

1000

500

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
2
Stope wall surface area (m )
Figure 8. Plot of exposed area of over-break versus stope wall surface area for Block C stopes.

CONCLUSIONS
An improved methodology to understand the relative influence of the various factors that
influence open stope performance has been proposed. The method allows for the
simultaneous investigation of various factors, such as rock mass parameters and the results of
numerical modelling, the integration of the spatial variability of parameters, and ability to
query the rock mass volume for a variety of candidate criteria. The methodology is not a
replacement for traditional analytical or numerical techniques, yet provides a framework for
integrating and interrogating results from these techniques. WASM are currently in the
process of further refining the interrogative methodology using the techniques described in
this paper. Currently, meta-data derived from the volumetric analysis and stope performance
reviews is kept separate from the geometric entities (i.e. stopes, faults, over-break, etc) in the
stope performance database. Potential exists to integrate both the geometrical entities and
meta-data in object-oriented databases and possibly explore 3D-GIS capabilities to generate
complex queries to further enhance back analysis techniques.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank Kanowna Belle Gold Mine, Barrick Australia, for kindly providing us with
their CMS data and allowing us to publish this paper. We wish to acknowledge financial
assistance of our other industry partner, BHPBilliton - Cannington and the ARC for a Linkage
Grant. We would also like to acknowledge Zaparo Pty Ltd for allowing the use of their
software to assist in this work.

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