SUMMARIES

(1988) Egretli and Singh - A laboratory investigation into the effects of air voids and water
saturation on the collapse settlement of open cast mine backfill.
(1988) Kilkenny - A low-rise hospital development on restored opencast fill.
(1991) Burford - Surcharging a deep opencast backfill for housing development.
(1995) Day - Case study of settlement of gravelly sand backfill.
(1996) Cheeks - Settlement of shallow foundations on uncontrolled mine spoil fills.
(1997) Naderian & Williams - Bearing capacity of open-cut coal-mine backfill materials.
1. Egretli and singh (1988) conducted the laboratory investigation to evaluate the influence of
void ratio (e) on collapse settlement of backfill. They designed the settlement cell to study
collapse settlement considering (i) effect of compaction state, (ii) effect of initial compaction
loading, (iii) influence of saturation on the collapse settlement. They used polythene lining
along the side of the cell to minimize load loss due to friction. Series of tests were conducted
on mudstone and sandstone samples.
Test (a) loading was applied to the cell with the initial e of 0.63, they observed that the
maximum compression occurred when small stresses were applied, concluded this may be
due to the sample having high initial e and the strain was insignificant after loading was
exceeded 3.5MPa.
Test (b) with the initial e the loading was done when the stress reached till 0.6MPa, water was
introduced for saturation with the e 0.59, then the loading was done till the stress of 3MPa, it
was observed that 44% of total settlement was due to saturation this lead to additional
compression of 7.9%.
Test (c) with an initial e of 68.9% was inundated at stress of 1.2MPa, 37% of total settlement
took place, and then 3.7% of settlement occurred until 3MPa.
Test (d) the rock sample as compressed, lowest collapse compression was observed.
Test (e) the sample with initial e of 0.36 was saturated at stress of 5.9MPa. 22.3% of total
settlement was observed to have occurred due to saturation. On increase of stress to 7.4MPa
small additional compression of 0.02% was observed.
From collapse compression vs void ratio it was inferred that large values of strain for high air
void fill, decreasing to approximately zero strain at 10% air void ratio.
Series of tests on sandstone samples were also conducted,
Test (f) the sandstone was initially compacted to have e of 0.27, inundation was done at
3MPa with e of 0.18, 1.6% compression was observed to have occurred. The stress was
increased up till 6MPa, resulted in additional compression of 1.3%
Test (g) the sample with initial e of 0.37 was flooded at 1.8MPa with 25%air voids 2.1%
collapse was observed. Additional compression of 3.1% was observed at 6MPa.
Test (h) with initial e of 0.49, it was flooded at the highest e of 0.43 compression of 4.8% was
observed, up to stress of 6MPa the reduction in e was to a level of 26%.
From the series of tests that were carried on mudstone and sandstone samples, it was
concluded from test (a) that collapse mechanism was independent of pressure level before
flooding. Collapse settlement occurred immediately after flooding, collapse occurred where
the void ratio was found maximum, the rate of settlement reduces rapidly subsequent to
collapse. The relation between collapse compression and voids ratio for mudstone was found
to be curvilinear whereas for sandstone it was found linear; this was explained due to the
UCS of sandstone was higher than mudstone and initial moisture content of sandstone was
higher than mudstone.
It was concluded that to reduce collapse settlement, backfill be compacted at OMC and max
dry density.
2. Kilkenny (1988) (Case study on a hospital developed on restored opencast fill of 30 years of
age) in general described settlement of backfill has three main components (i) settlement due
to self-weight at original moisture content, (ii) settlement due to building loads, (iii)
settlement due to wetting up. Long term compression due to self-weight was defined by creep
compression which is percentage vertical compression of the fill that occurs during a log 10
cycle of time from 1-10 years of restoration. Then immediate settlement was defined by the
use of constrained vertical drained modulus Ev = 1/mv. The compressibility of the fill was
assessed by in-situ testing by SPT.
It was concluded from the study was that the upper layers on the investigated site was to have
relative low compressibility, majority of fill below upper layer was medium to high
compressible. Initially the settlement was observed to increase rapidly and then continued
with the diminishing rate; the increase of settlement at constant stress was may be due to
wetting up.
3. Burford (1991) to improve bearing capacity of deep fill, Burford surcharged the fill. He
conducted his assessment on the backfill of 24m deep with a 50m square and 7m high
surcharge. He observed that most of the settlement occurred when the surcharge was being
placed. Of about 300mm surface settlement occurred, the amount of settlement was
decreasing with the depth. Initially it was observed some initial settlement, at some depth
below the ground surface the subsequent settlement was very small.
In laboratory the index properties of the fill were determined with moisture content of 15%,
plastic limit and liquid limit of 16% and 34%, all clayey samples were found to be within low
to intermediate plastic and were all plotted just above A-line.
It was observed that on removal of surcharge there was heave of up to about 15% of total
settlement, long term of gauge observation indicated that there was no further heave after
initial rebound. From the immediate, maximum and final settlement plot it was observed that
amount of heave was almost equal to creep settlement, the heave was thought to have
occurred due to small amount of elastic deformation.
Plate load testing was done with a working load 80kPa and 16kPa to assess the immediate
settlement, significant amount of heave was observed on removal of load on the plate. When
a surcharge of 150kPa the immediate settlement of 300mm was observed and at a depth of
about 8m below surface there was very little settlement and at about 12m there was negligible
settlement, on removal of surcharge the heave of 25mm was recorded.
Plate load testing with the working load of 80kPa indicated short term settlement of 4mm and
long term settlement of about 25mm.
(2009) Zipper and Winter Stabilizing reclaimed mines to support buildings and
development
(2012) Weddell Design, prediction and monitoring of deep fill settlement
(2013) Constitutive modelling and testing of interface between backfill soil and fiber-
reinforced polymer
(2013) Settlement and shear strength of uncemented coal mine overburden materials placed
loose under dry and wet conditions
(2015) Surface subsidence control theory and application to backfill coal mining technology