Backfilling Materials for Underground Mining

Dear Colleagues,

Backfilling of mined-out areas is a fundamental component of many underground mining operations. The backfill material provides support to the surrounding rock mass, reduces wasteful dilution, enables a safe working area for production activities and mitigates the risk of surface subsidence. By combining tailing materials in backfill, it is possible to reduce the environmental footprint of the mine and assist with final site rehabilitation. Therefore, cemented paste backfill (CPB) has become an important component of underground mining operations. CPB is a mixture of tailings, water, and cement used to fill underground stopes. Reducing backfilling cost by decreasing cement content may increase ore dilution from poorly performing backfill exposures. Alternatively, increasing cement content will raise the costs; however, it could increase the productivity through improved mining system cycle times. To reduce the cost and keep the CBP strength at its required level, use of other binder materials can reduce the cost while maintaining its optimal strength performance. Moreover, the tailings particle size and density significantly alter the strength, microstructure, water demand and economic costs of backfill mixtures. In addition, CPB, solid waste backfilling has become popular in underground mining activities specially coal mining. In coal mining, backfilling of the gob area is performed in conjunction with mining operations. The properties of solid waste backfilled materials may significantly influence local strata behaviour. Therefore, assessment of the behaviour of backfill material under different in-situ stress conditions is of crucial importance. This Special Issue aims to bring together corresponding studies from all these areas including fundamental constitutive model studies, experimental studies, as well as analytical and numerical analyses, to characterize backfill material. We welcome studies on mine stability and mining operation issues in mining with backfill and backfill mining case studies.

The first round deadline is 30 November 2018.

Dr. Abbas Taheri
Prof. Dr. Jixiong Zhang
Guest Editors

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