Recovery of blue water ramp access affected by rockfall

Authors: Diaz, D; Bermedo, E; Schellman, M Download Paper Open access courtesy of:

DOI https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/2025_82

Cite As:
Diaz, D, Bermedo, E & Schellman, M 2020, 'Recovery of blue water ramp access affected by rockfall', in PM Dight (ed.), Slope Stability 2020: Proceedings of the 2020 International Symposium on Slope Stability in Open Pit Mining and Civil Engineering, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 1213-1226, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/2025_82



Abstract:
The blue water ramp is the only existing access to Donoso 2 Phase at Los Bronces Mine that belongs to Anglo American. This ramp registered a significant number of rockfall events during 2016 and 2017, thus a decision was made at the end of 2017 to close down this access and as a result, Donoso 2 Phase. In order to safely resume operations at Donoso 2 Phase, a multidisciplinary team has performed work which included a rockfall analysis, coefficient calibrations and in situ tests to verify the behaviour of the proposed solutions, considerations of implementation logistics and subsequent follow up of the implemented strategy. The aforementioned with the purpose of being able to guarantee a safe access to the phase, thus resume the development of the same. The solution proposed considered the installation of reinforcement mesh in the upper part of the ramp and mixed containment barriers at the base. This solution has allowed maintaining operational continuity at the access point to Donoso 2 Phase. Furthermore, this option has been used as a solution basis for other sectors.

Keywords: rockfall, containment, in situ test

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