Di Ciolli, M, Campbell, R, Taylor, K, Primadiansyah, A & Kaiser, PK 2022, 'Practical application of deformation-based support design', in Y Potvin (ed.), Caving 2022: Proceedings of the Fifth International  Conference on Block and Sublevel Caving, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 213-226, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/2205_13
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/2205_13_Di Ciolli/)
Abstract: Panel cave mines at PT Freeport Indonesia experience damaging strainburst events due to high cavinginduced stress and brittle rock mass conditions. Traditional energy-based support design principles did not provide an appropriate ground support design to manage the strainburst hazard in the mining environment. While field fitting of gabion-based support systems was successfully developed, a clear design basis was lacking. To address this gap, a deformation-based support design methodology was defined, which has proven more effective at informing support strategy under these challenging conditions. This operational change in methodology necessitated an update of the ground support design basis and supporting tools. Three significant updates to the existing load-based and energy-based design philosophy were required: 1) determine a support system capacity from individual support elements, 2) include displacement-based demand calculations in the strainburst support assessment, and 3) estimate the service life of the support system based on the anticipated loading path. Experience around the development and validation of a deformation-based support design workflow as well as challenges of implementing deformation-based support design at scale are described.

Keywords: ground support, deformation-based support design, strainburst