a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Following a small-scale wedge failure at Yukon Zinc’s Wolverine Mine in Yukon, Canada, a vibration
Received 21 October 2014 monitoring program was added to the existing rockbolt pull testing regime. The failure in the 1150 drift
Received in revised form occurred after numerous successive blasts in an adjacent tunnel had loosened friction bolts passing
3 December 2014
through an unmapped fault. Analysis of blasting vibration revealed that support integrity is not
Accepted 5 December 2014
Available online 21 January 2015
compromised unless there is a geological structure to act as a failure plane. The peak particle velocity
(PPV) rarely exceeded 250 mm/s with a frequency larger than 50 Hz. As expected, blasting more
competent rock resulted in higher PPVs. In such cases, reducing the round length from 3.5 m to 2.0 m
Keywords:
Blasting damage
was an effective means of limiting potential rock mass and support damage.
Vibration monitoring Ó 2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Adjacent tunnel development Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Dynamic loading of friction bolts
Jinduicheng Molybdenum
Wolverine Mine
Yukon Zinc
1. Introduction The relatively shallow dip of the ore, around 35 , precludes the
use of conventional horizontal mining such as room and pillar as
Yukon Zinc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jinduicheng Mo- well as conventional vertical methods such as long hole stoping.
lybdenum and operates the Wolverine mine located approximately Rather, overhand and, more recently, underhand, cut-and-fill
280 km northeast of Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, as shown in Fig. 1. mining is employed. Production headings are generally driven
The mine recovers ore from a polymetallic volcanogenic massive 4.5 m 4.6 m (width height) at a grade of 2%. When the end of
sulfide (VMS) deposit consisting of two ore zones on either side of a the ore body is reached, paste pipes are installed and one wall is
largely barren saddle zone. The Wolverine and Lynx ore zones each retreat-slashed. After slashing, a cemented tailings backfill (CTB) is
consist of multiple lenses with numerous cross-cutting faults. pumped from the mill into the stope behind a shotcrete arch
Current mining faces are accessed by a ramp extending over 200 m barricade. After filling, mining is carried out beside, over or under
vertically at a grade of 15%. the paste.
The ore is relatively competent massive sulfide rock with an The relatively heavy ground support requirements are dictated
average geological strength index (GSI) of w40. The ore, however, is by the aforementioned poor ground conditions. Primary support
highly fractured and faulted in some zones reducing its compe- consists of 8 ft regular (2.4 m) and 12 ft super (3.7 m) inflatable
tence. The hanging wall is of very poor competency, consisting of rockbolts with respective capacities of 12 t and 24 t. In addition,
argillite, which is graphitic in many regions. The hanging wall has a steel fiber reinforced shotcrete is used prior to bolting in some
GSI < 20 and w10 when encountered in graphitic form. The headings, while regular shotcrete is sometimes applied after bolt-
hanging wall has a tendency to exhibit “chimney” failure where a ing. Shotcrete is generally used for intersections, the main ramp,
drift back may unravel in excess of 100% of its drilled height, hanging wall exposure and wet footwall exposure. In cases where
especially when not blasted carefully. In contrast, the footwall is a excavation widths exceed 10 m or ground movement is observed,
somewhat more stable rhyolite with typical GSI ratings between 20 18 ft connectible inflatable bolts and/or steel sets may be installed
and 30. Nevertheless, due to the presence of clay minerals, it is very (Shin, 2014a).
susceptible to swelling and washing out in the presence of water. Prior to the start of vibration monitoring, instrumentation in use
or previously used on site includes multipoint extensometers to
measure movement at critical pillars, tilt meters to measure
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 416 857 5551. movement of steel arches at the main ramp and load cells to record
E-mail address: nick.yugo@alum.utoronto.ca (N. Yugo). loading at the shotcrete barricades. A recent addition to the
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, instrumentation program is vibration monitoring carried out with a
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
1674-7755 Ó 2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sci-
Blastmate III with a triaxial geophone. Vibration monitoring was
ences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. introduced following a small-scale wedge failure at the 1150 level,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2014.12.005 which will be discussed in the next section.
N. Yugo, W. Shin / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 282e290 283
The aim of the study was to find an effective way of measuring during mining of the 1150 level as it was not seen in either the wall
and mitigating the impact of blasting-induced seismic waves on or face.
adjacent mining excavations. Once this process is understood, mine After repeated blasting from the 1160WV level 7e10 m away,
planning can be performed with greater confidence in the mini- the frictional resistance of the installed rockbolts was weakened
mum required pillar distance. In the case of Wolverine, the primary and the separation was induced at the hidden fault. A wedge was
goal was to verify that current blasting practices are not inducing formed by the intersection of the joint set and the fault that
damage in neighboring tunnels. The approach focuses on under- exceeded the capacity of the installed rockbolts. The wedge then
ground measurements that verify theoretical approaches derived slid into the 1150 tunnel during nightshift. No one was injured.
from blasting theory and dynamic wave propagation. A rehab plan was issued calling for the region to be shotcreted,
The results are immediately applicable since blasting can be re-bolted with 12 ft 24-t friction bolts and re-shotcreted. Another
adjusted underground by the engineering and operations depart- 50 m of the drift were bolted with two rows of the higher capacity
ment immediately after each blast if required. In addition, pre- 12 ft bolts 1 m apart along the right wall (Shin, 2014b).
cautions can be taken ahead of time if vibration monitoring The four recommendations from the wedge failure investigation
indicates high or potentially damaging stress wave propagation were as follows:
prior to blasting safety-critical rounds.
A novel aspect of the study is that findings and results are (1) Rehab the region with shotcrete and 12 ft rockbolts;
immediately implemented at the discretion of the engineering staff (2) Modification of the Ground Control Management Plan to
in collaboration with the mining production staff. Moreover, the include mandatory 12 ft bolting when the slope distance be-
setup of instrumentation is performed by engineers around the tween sublevels is below 10 m;
production schedule and does not result in any lost production or (3) Pull testing of sublevel regions to verify integrity of rockbolts
downtime. This results in an immediate, direct benefit to opera- following vibration damage;
tions and further encourages such research at operating mines. (4) Vibration monitoring to determine the impact of blasting on
adjacent drifts.
2. Investigation of the 1150 level wedge block failure
Fig. 2. Cross-section of 1150 wedge failure depicting geology, ground support and proximity to 1160WV level (Shin, 2014b). HW and FW stand for hanging wall and footwall,
respectively.
For the purposes of this study, the PVS rather than any particular
direction PPV is compared to the predicted PPV. The intent behind
using PVS is to more accurately back calculate the factor H dis-
cussed in the next section by removing the influence of the relative
orientations of adjacent excavations. It should be noted however
that the peak axial acceleration and PPV are thought to induce
damage in the excavation. As a result, the three directional PPVs
will also be presented. It is also to be noted that the PVS does not
necessarily occur at the same time as a component PPV.
Blasting damage is primarily achieved by stress wave interaction
with free surfaces (ISEE, 1998). Compressive stress waves induced
in rock are reflected in tension upon encountering a free surface
(Kolsky, 1963; Meyers, 1994). Since rock is much weaker in tension
than in compression, fracture occurs as a result of the reflected
tensile stress waves (Jaeger et al., 2007). As a result, the axial PPV
was used as a practical indicator of potential blasting damage and
Fig. 4. Wolverine underground 11 drilling pattern. Length is in meter (YZC, 2013).
to gage whether shorter rounds or special loading precautions were 4.1. 1160WV level
warranted.
The mechanism of stress waves damaging adjacent drifts is Fig. 8 shows that while there is a trend between the predicted
illustrated in Fig. 7. It can be seen that during normal blasting, and measured PPVs, there is also anomalous data between the
compressive stress waves are reflected in tension at the free surface predicted 50100 mm/s range. Another observation is that the
of a nearby tunnel, causing damage to the tunnel at the rock/ recorded PVS value is fairly consistently below the predicted upper
excavation boundary. When the perimeter holes are detonated first, range. In other words, this case has the lowest back-calculated
a boundary is created around the excavation reflecting the stress factor H as can be seen from Table 3. This implies that energy
waves back into the heading being blasted. An alternate method of transfer between the 1160WV production level and the 1150
mitigating damage is to reduce round lengths from 3.5 m to 2.0 m. monitoring level is not efficient. Recalling the fault along which the
This reduces the charge weight per delay thereby reducing the 1150 wedge failure occurred from Fig. 3, these results are not sur-
magnitude of the stress waves. prising. Rather, the lower than expected factor H serves to confirm
By limiting tensile wave propagation to the drift being blasted, the presence of a structure between the explosives and the vibra-
the extent of the blast damaged zone (BDZ) is minimized. Without tion monitor that interferes with stress wave propagation. Indeed,
pre-shearing, tensile cracks may develop originating at stress wave as discussed earlier, a fault can act as a free surface to allow for
reflection interface of the adjacent drift. For stable underground stress wave reflection back to the source. Furthermore, damage
excavations, minimizing the extent of BDZ is critical. occurring at the fault from reflected tensile waves may lead to
A literature review by Xia et al. (2013) found that shotcrete movement and further dilation. This would reinforce the previous
cracking occurred when vibration exceeded 700 mm/s or more. hypothesis of blast-induced damage along the 11501160WV fault.
Fig. 7. Mechanism of stress wave induced damage at adjacent excavation. Length is in meter.
286 N. Yugo, W. Shin / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 282e290
Table 3
Blast data summary.
Mining level PVS (mm/s) Axial frequency (Hz) Axial PPV (mm/s) H Rock type Direction of wave
propagation relative
Min. Max. Average Min. Max. Average Min. Max. Average Min. Max. Average
to strike/foliation
1160WV (n ¼ 13) 41 141 79 13 146 92 28 110 55 424 4375 1357 FW: Chloritic rhyolite Skewed, crossing fault
1145 south (n ¼ 19) 53 234 97 9 175 108 19 175 75 565 4580 2366 FW/ORE: Chloritic Perpendicular
rhyolite/massive sulfide
1145MAR (n ¼ 2) 43 90 66.5 171 200 e 48 32 40 1721 2686 2204 FW: Chloritic rhyolite Parallel
1200 (n ¼ 5) 18 224 117 93 171 137 8 154 64.22 242 9370 2429 ORE/HW and ORE: Perpendicular
Massive sulfide/argillite
It is also possible to see from Fig. 8 that changes in the loading through chloritic rhyolite footwall. In the former, wave propagation
pattern, i.e. detonating perimeter Xactex holes prior to the pro- was perpendicular to strike while in the latter it was parallel.
duction holes as shown in red squares, pre-shearing, did not appear Nevertheless, the values of average back-calculated factor H were
to play a significant role in reducing vibration compared to stan- 2366 and 2204, respectively. The similar figures indicate that blast
dard loading practices. vibration can propagate across foliation layers without difficulty.
This is in contrast to the H ¼ 1357 in 1160WV level where it was
4.2. 1200 level found that significant structural discontinuities such as faults
adversely impact stress wave propagation.
The 1200 level was the only case where stress waves traveled From Fig. 12, it is apparent that 1160WV level has markedly
through competent massive sulfide ore. As a result, the highest lower measured particle velocities than the other headings. Note
recorded PVSs of over 200 mm/s were from this heading. In two out that when applying linear regression and setting (0, 0) as a valid
of three cases where pre-shearing along the contour holes was point, a higher H is implied for 1145MAR compared to the 1145
requested, the measured particle velocities were far lower than south level. While this is based on a limited data set, the two
predicted. In one case however, the recorded velocity was higher regression slopes are closer to one another than to 1160WV. In this
than predicted, as can be seen in Fig. 9. case, more efficient propagation is along strike rather than across
From Fig. 10, it can be seen that the highest axial velocities strike, which is more intuitive than the inverse suggested by
occurred at delay 0 corresponding with the perimeter holes deto- averaging the values of back-calculated factor H. Also note that a
nating. It is possible that more than the perimeter holes were tied regression line is not provided for 1200 due to significant data
in with delay 0, causing a larger than expected particle velocity. scatter and that one point with a PPV of around 700 mm/s is not
About 12 kg of explosives simultaneously detonating would be shown on the graph.
sufficient to explain the observed particle velocities.
Nevertheless, following the initial spike of just under 80 mm/s 5. Vibration mitigation
in the axial direction, no subsequent delay period caused vibration
in excess of 20 mm/s. In this case, a discontinuity was successfully Two principal methods were attempted to minimize vibrations,
created effectively reflecting stress waves and limiting propagation i.e. pre-shearing as discussed earlier and shorter round lengths. The
to the adjacent tunnel. notion behind shorter round lengths is that the explosive charge is
Fig. 11 illustrates the same heading where a 3.5 m round was reduced when drilling 2.0 m rounds compared to 3.5 m rounds.
taken with pre-shearing. In this case, there is a lack of pronounced While Figs. 10 and 11 demonstrate the implementation of pre-
initial spike indicating much less explosives used at delay period 0. shearing, Fig. 13 suggests that it was not operationally successful
In contrast to Fig. 10, an effective discontinuity was not created and in reducing vibrations. As expected, vibrations were noticeably
particle velocity peaked around delays 1314. reduced with increased distance regardless of the loading and
blasting technique employed. However, there was not an observ-
4.3. 1145 level able decrease in PVS when pre-shearing was employed.
141
Measured PVS (mm/s)
150
100
92.1
100
50
50
0 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 0 200 400 600 800
Predicted PPV (mm/s) Predicted PPV (mm/s)
Fig. 8. 1160WV level vibration monitoring. Fig. 9. 1200 level measured and predicted particle velocities.
N. Yugo, W. Shin / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 282e290 287
VERT Periods
60
40
1200
1400
1600
2000
2250
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
6500
7000
8000
400
800
0
20
Radial PPV (mm/s)
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Time (ms)
VERT Periods
140
90
1200
1400
1600
2000
2250
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
6500
7000
8000
400
800
40
0
Radial PPV (mm/s)
-10
-60
-110
-160
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Time (ms)
150
6. Frequency
y = 0.3212x
1145S (Ore/FW, Standard) 1145 MAR (FW, Standard) Wolverine Mine are not detrimental to installed rockbolts in and of
1160WV (FW, Standard) 1145S (Ore/FW, Pre-Shear) itself.
1160WV (FW, Pre-Shear)
200 8. PVS and component PPV
160 y=0.7011x
(R²=0.868)
Measured PPV axial (mm/s)
80
120
y=0.5932x
60
(R²=0.199)
80
40
40 20
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Distance between blast and vibration monitor (m) Measured PVS (mm/s)
Fig. 14. Round length impact on PVS. Fig. 15. PVS and PPV components at 1160WV level.
N. Yugo, W. Shin / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 7 (2015) 282e290 289
A similar pattern is observed in Fig. 16 with the highest corre- Axial Transverse
lation seen between the axial PPV and PVS for 1145 south level: Longitudinal Axial fitted
Transverse fitted Longitudinal fitted
200
PPVaxial;1145south ¼ 0:77PVS R2 ¼ 0:75 (5)
y=0.6927x
9. Conclusions
150
y=0.5474x
As noted in the previous section, the PPVs observed in routine (R² = 0.9081)
blasting at Wolverine Mine do not exceed 250 mm/s and are 100
y=0.5346x
generally greater than 50 Hz. Visual inspection of installed (R²=0.7007)
ground control elements including shotcrete as well as pull 50
testing of rockbolts reveals that damage thresholds have not been
exceeded.
0
It has also been shown that higher velocities can be expected in 0 50 100 150 200 250
the more competent massive sulfide ore than the rhyolite footwall Measured PVS (mm/s)
or argillite hanging wall. In addition, it is possible to limit stress
wave propagation by creating cracks between perimeter holes. The Fig. 17. PVS and PPV components at 1200 level.
operational caveat to this is that when such action is required, the
drilling and loading must be carefully supervised to ensure that
technical instructions are accurately carried out. A more effective are not the result of hidden discontinuities and faults. Indeed,
method of controlling blast vibrations at Wolverine is to limit careful inspection of routine blast monitoring may reveal hidden
advance lengths to 2.0 m rather than the standard 3.5 m reducing geological structures which may both pose threats to operations
the maximum charge weight. and provide opportunities for better understanding the ore
Comparing measured PVSs to component PPVs revealed that the deposit.
most potentially damaging axial vibrations are not always corre- In order to gain more insight into the impact of blasting activ-
lated with high PVS. Factors including relative drift orientation, ities on adjacent excavations, future study may involve two geo-
rock type, geological structures and lithological contacts play a role phones that can be used to determine stress wave velocities
in determining the magnitude of normally oriented or axial vi- through different rock types. Multiple geophones would also give
brations compared to PVS, or PPV regardless of direction. greater insight into stress wave interaction at lithological bound-
The mapped fault in the 1160WV level had a notable impact on aries and structures. In addition, the extent of the blasting damaged
vibration magnitudes measured in the 1150 level. Since not even zone briefly discussed in Section 3.2 can be further studied with
the highest measured PPV had a detrimental impact on installed numerical modeling.
ground support, it is recommended that any anomalously low
particle velocities are carefully reviewed to make certain that they Conflict of interest
MacDonald, Cory Redmond, Neil Chambers and Procon Tunneling. Woo Shin is the Technical Services Superintendent at
Yukon Zinc Corporation’s Wolverine Mine. He has worked
The authors also acknowledge support for the study received from
at Yukon Zinc since 2011. Prior to joining Yukon Zinc, Woo
on-site management, Mr. Floyd Varley, VP Operations at the time of had been involved in variety of geotechnical assignments on
writing, Mr. David Bo and Mr. Murray Weddell, Deputy MGMs, as underground mine development, numerical modeling,
well as corporate support from Yukon Zinc and Jinduicheng Mo- tunnel support system design, and slope stabilization for
open pit mine as a geotechnical engineer, consultant and
lybdenum received from Mr. Jingyou Lu and Mr. Aihua Dang. project coordinator. Woo received a PhD from the Univer-
sity of Alberta, Canada in 2010 and his thesis topic was
References “Excavation disturbed/damaged zone in Lac du Bonnet
Granite”.
Department of Defense, USA (DoD). DoD ammunition and explosives safety stan-
dards. Washington, D.C., USA: DoD 6055.9-STD; 1999.
International Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE). Blaster’s handbook. 17th ed.
Bainbridge, OH, USA: International Society of Explosives Engineers; 1998.
Jaeger J, Cook N, Zimmerman R. Fundamentals of rock mechanics. 4th ed. Malden,
MA, USA: Blackwell Publishing; 2007.
Kolsky H. Stress waves in solids. Mineola, NY, USA: Dover Publications Inc.; 1963.
Meyers M. Dynamic behavior of materials. New York, NY, USA: John Wiley and
Sons; 1994.
Shin W. Wolverine ground control management plan (GCMP). Whitehorse, YT, Nick Yugo is the Senior Mine Engineer at Yukon Zinc
Canada: Yukon Zinc Corporation; 2014a. Corporation’s Wolverine Mine in the Yukon. He has
Shin W. 1150 wedge failure investigation. Whitehorse, YT, Canada: Yukon Zinc worked at Yukon Zinc since 2012 and been involved in
Corporation; 2014b. ground support and mine planning. Prior to joining Yukon
Xia X, Li HB, Li JC, Liu B, Yu C. A case study on rock damage prediction and control Zinc, Nick worked with the Deep Mining Research Con-
method for underground tunnels subjected to adjacent excavation blasting. sortium to develop and test yielding ground support sys-
Tunneling and Underground Space Technology 2013;35:1e7. tems for rockburst prone high in-situ stress mines
Yukon Zinc Corporation (YZC). Wolverine underground procedure #11 blasting. including Nickel Rim South in Sudbury, Ontario. Nick grad-
Whitehorse, YT, Canada: Yukon Zinc Corporation; 2013. uated at the top of his class with Honors, obtaining a Bach-
Yukon Zinc Corporation (YZC). YZC full orientation 2014. Whitehorse, YT, Canada: elor of Applied Science degree in Mineral Engineering and
Yukon Zinc Corporation; 2014. a Master’s in Geomechanics at the University of Toronto.