Opportunities and Challenges in Deep Mining: A Brief Review

Pathegama G. Ranjith; Jian Zhao; Minghe Ju; Radhika V. S. De Silva; Tharaka D. Rathnaweera; Adheesha K. M. S. Bandara

doi:10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.024

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Engineering ›› 2017, Vol. 3 ›› Issue (4) : 546-551. DOI: 10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.024

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Opportunities and Challenges in Deep Mining: A Brief Review

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Abstract

Mineral consumption is increasing rapidly as more consumers enter the market for minerals and as the global standard of living increases. As a result, underground mining continues to progress to deeper levels in order to tackle the mineral supply crisis in the 21st century. However, deep mining occurs in a very technical and challenging environment, in which significant innovative solutions and best practice are required and additional safety standards must be implemented in order to overcome the challenges and reap huge economic gains. These challenges include the catastrophic events that are often met in deep mining engineering: rockbursts, gas outbursts, high in situ and redistributed stresses, large deformation, squeezing and creeping rocks, and high temperature. This review paper presents the current global status of deep mining and highlights some of the newest technological achievements and opportunities associated with rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering in deep mining. Of the various technical achievements, unmanned working-faces and unmanned mines based on fully automated mining and mineral extraction processes have become important fields in the 21st century.

Keywords

Deep mining / Rock mechanics / Rockburst / In situstresses / Mining automation

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Pathegama G. Ranjith, Jian Zhao, Minghe Ju, Radhika V. S. De Silva, Tharaka D. Rathnaweera, Adheesha K. M. S. Bandara. Opportunities and Challenges in Deep Mining: A Brief Review. Engineering, 2017, 3(4): 546‒551 https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENG.2017.04.024

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Compliance with ethics guidelines

Pathegama G. Ranjith, Jian Zhao, Minghe Ju, Radhika V. S. De Silva, Tharaka D. Rathnaweera, and Adheesha K. M. S. Bandara declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose.

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2017 2017 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).