Open cast mining is one of the most common mining methods to extract ore from the ground. Excavation of rock slopes is common practice in civil engineering in road cuts for rail and road projects as well as in foundation cuts for dams and building projects.
For all of these cases, a slope is created in jointed rocks of varying quality and strength posing various challenges in stability analysis and design. Instability in rock slopes can cause disruption to the operation/project with significant financial consequences. In some cases, they cause significant damage to equipment and in the worse cases, cause fatalities with both significant financial or social consequences.
SCT Operations applies state of art of continuum and discontinuum numerical modelling along with traditional limit equilibrium and kinematic analysis to assess the stability of rock slopes against various failure modes. Considering the inherent uncertainties of geotechnical data, probabilistic stability analysis is conducted to assess the risk level for each section of the open pit.