Vibration response of the waste rock dump in open pit mine caused by blasting operation

Abstract

Analysis of slope stability is often solved when designing and realizing waste dumps. Vibration effect needs to be taken into account, especially when the waste dump is situated in close distance to the seismic loading source. In the open pit mine near Jarnoltowek (Poland), phyllite is excavated, and rock waste is deposited on the dump directly in the mine; that is at a distance of approximately 150 m from the quarry face. Blasting operations are used as mining technology here so the rock waste dump could be influenced by these vibrations significantly. The paper presents results of experimental seismological measurement performed on four levels of the rock waste dump in the discussed mine. One seismic station was also located in front of the dump on the rocky ground so that analysis of dump response in amplitude and frequency domains can be performed for example by the spectral ratio method. The spectral ratio is calculated based on the records obtained on rocky ground and the dump. Seismic noise data recorded at different levels of the dump were also analysed to obtain the resonant frequency of the dump.

Keywords

• dump
• vibration
• blasting
• seismic noise
• spectral ratio