Defining the remediation measures of the inner waste dump slopes at the open pit Gacko-Central Field

Abstract

The open pit mining takes place in a heterogeneous working environment with known parameters with greater or lesser reliability. This is the main reason why the unexpected processes can occur at the open pts that endanger the safety of exploitation, people and machinery. Due to this reason, the interventions at the surface facilities in cases of occurrence of such processes are carried out with the basic function of ensuring the stability, safety of workers and mining equipment. These works require the highest priority, and they are carried out with equipment that is already present at the open pit or can be provided in a short term and based on the available information, because there is rarely enough time for the additional specific research and tests. The processes that lead to endangering the safety of exploitation are most often related to two types of phenomena, the appearance of slope instability and appearance of unforeseen amounts of water in the open pit contour, although they can also be related to the other situations (e.g., self-ignition of coal). First of all, the activities that must be carried out in these cases have to take into account two factors, the safety of works and limited time of implementation. This paper describes the phenomenon of instability of the inner waste dump at the open pit Gacko-Central Field, analysis of the phenomenon and procedure for defining the remediation measures.

Keywords

• surface exploitation
• exploitation safety
• slope stability
• remediation works