Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011.

ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

T.N. Singh Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai076, India

Keywords: Coal mine, waste dump, numerical model ABSTRACT: Dump failure are well known hazard, which affect the surrounding landscape around the mines. The failure of dump is always associated with economic but it enfluvence environmental and ecological problem too. In this paper an attempt is made to understand the causes of dump failure and highlights the way to simulate the dump slope using numerical tools and techniques to findout the overall health of the slope. Based on numerical analysis dump slope can be protected with economic and safety to ensure long-term stability. 1 INTRODUCTION

The surface mining activities in India is incresing at faster rate to bridge the gap between demand and supply of minerals to the industries particularly the energy sector.The good quality coal seams which are at shallow depth have been expoloited in past by surface mining method whereas deeper mines are being work out using board and pillars or longwall mining methods. To ensure maximum resource recovery, deeper and deeper mines are planned with higher stripping ratio. The higher stripping ratio will produced more and more waste material. In Indian, coal is a prime source of energy. The estimated resource of coal reserve are about 64,786 MT out of this reserve, approximatelly 52,546 MT is considered geologically proved reserve,whereas 30,356 MT of coal reserve is possible to extract with present knowledge and technology. The total coal production from coal India limited is to about 431 MT for the year 10-11 and estimated dump will be more than 2 to 3 times of coal. Alone northern coal field limited, one of the subsuderies of coal India, produce overburden of 225 Million Cubic meter.The dump material needs proper place for safe disposal. It is also difficult to get land around the mine due to either restriction by environmental act, forest land or agricultural land. The steeper dump slope is always preferred because it occupies less surface area but it is vunerable to failure too, which leads to hamper the regular production, loss of life, equipment and surrounding eco-system. However, flatter dump required more land which is also not an economical situation for the mine management. Land availability is limited and difficult to manage the dump in the demarcated land. The best solution is to optimise the slope for better accomodation of the dump material (Vishal et. al, 2010 a & b).

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Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

Failure of dump is also associated with environmental degradation like land, water, air and ecological changes (Singh, et. al, 2007 a & c). In spite of the claims of competent practices by many mining companies in India, dump failures are being reported from some coal mines. Indian geological as well as climatic complexity is very unique. Some of the mining companies prefer, only to operate for six month in an year because of change in the behaviour of geological material once, they come in contact with the rainwater, making the operations very critical, particularly regions like Goa and North Eastern part of India (Singh et. al, 2007 c). This also brings a lot of erosional activities and siltation, which results in land degradation and loss of fertility for agricultural land. Since the process of nature is dynamic in nature and very difficult to predict it in true sense. Here an attempt has benn made to simulate the dump for better insight. There are a number of factors which affect the dump stability (Singh and Chaulya, 1992; Singh et al, 1994; Singh et al, 2006). These factors are broadly classified as: Hydrogeological and rain water condition in the dumping area Load bearing capacity of where dump is to be laid Geometry and strength of the dump material Methods of dumping Dynamic loading and Ground movement Ground water level and the surface water flow conditions play a crucial role on the stability of dump slope. The higher load due to the dump height and the presence of water, reduces the frictional strength of the dumped material. The cohesive strength of weak geo-material will be further reduced due to presence of pore water pressure. The flow of water may enhance the seepage force, leading to the formation of tension cracks. It is also possible to have development of hydro-dynamic shocks due to poor blasting (Babu et. al, 1999, Sarkar et. al, 2007). Once, all the data are obtained and the relevant information is collected, then, these informations help in designing and executing the safe dump disposal practices. Surface water flow and percolation within the dump slope may create hydropressure within the various voids, which will reduce the shear strength and factor of safety. Several researchers have studies the effect of rain water as well as Ground water table depth on stability of waste dump. Earlier the ground, on which dumps materials are placed, did not attract much attention of the designers. It was because of the low height and flat dump slope practices, but now the quantity of dump material is huge and the shortage of land availability compel the designers to think about the load bearing capacity of the ground to avoid any kind of failure or subsidence with in the ground. If the ground is sloping then the dump height and dump slope should be corrected as per need of the ground. The slope geometry and the geo-mechanical strength of the dump material always control the factor of safety of the dump. The Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS) maintains that the dump slope should not be more than at an angle of repose of the dump material with a ratio of 1:3 of the bench width to bench height. Dump materials are anisotropic in their behaviour and its stress-strain behaviour is quite erratic, owing to the presence of clay minerals. The visco-elastic behaviour due to the presence of water poses serious threat during 26

Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011. ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

the rainy season. The shear strength reduction due to rise in pore pressure leads to the failure. Consolidation is another key factor because of the uneven size distribution of the dump material. The irregular size distribution of fragments can create problems if method of dumping is not scientific. Normally, tailings are dumped at a place by the unloading dumpers, allowing the material to fall under gravity along the slope. In this condition, finer material either stays at top or fills within the voids left between the lagre boulders. The large scale boulders fall under the influence of gravity near the toe level. However, in dragline dumping, it is not possible to compact the dump due to time contraints. These dumps are most of the time critically stable, but need improved compaction and flattening for long term stabilization (Figure 1). Drilling and blasting is an integral part of surface excavation. Explosive energy is used for fragmenting and displacing the overburden. This energy is not fully utilized for fragmenting the rock mass. Some of the energy is wasted in the form of blast ill effects like, ground vibrations, noises, back breaks, fly rocks etc (Singh and Premkrishnan, 2000; Khandelwal and Singh 2006). These factors affect the stability of waste dump slope. Due to repeated dynamic loading and unloading waste dump material looses its strength with time. This leads to failing of the material at lower load than their actual failing load. Kumar et al (2009) investigated the effect of ground vibration on stability of dump for dragline dump slope. Rarely, the temperature influences the performance of a waste dump of slope but heavy water seepage and change in climatic conditions generate tension cracks. High variation in temperature can cause dump material to spall due to the accompanying contraction and expansion. Water freezing in voids may causes damage by further loosening the rock mass. Repeated freeze/thaw cycles may result in gradual loss of strength. Except for periodic maintenance requirements, temperature effects are a surface phenomenon and are most likely of little concern for final waste dump slope solution. However, in a few cases, surface weakening has activated dump slope instability in a larger scale. Erosion also plays an important role in affecting the stability by two types, primary is massive scale erosion, such as river erosion at the toe of the river bed. The other one is comparatively localized erosion caused due to groundwater or surface runoff. Erosion changes the waste dump slope geometry amd morphological characters. The weathering and attrition of material

27 Figure 1. Dumping using dragline.

Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

at the toe of a potential slide reduces the restraining force that may destabilize the slope. Erosion of void filling material, or zones of percolation, can efficiently decrease cohesion among grain boundaries. The decease of cohesive strength notably reduces the rock mass shear strength. The resulting decrease in shear strength may allow movement in the dump slope along weak planes. In addition, localized erosion may also result in increased permeability and ground-water flow. Biostablisation of dump slopes using various varieties of plants can provide a strong interlocking network to hold unconsolidated materials together and increases binding strength. Besides, plants are very useful tool for dewatering the waste dump, consequently increasing their shear strength. The extra weight of plants may cause a slight destabilising effect if the root networks are unicellular having no compound roots. To improve the shear strength, we actually need compound roots spreading more on horizontal direction than vertical one.There are many more tools and techniques to stabilize the dump viz. grouting, wire meshing, retaining wall etc. The failure of dump is most of the time very compound and complex type and simple assumptions are not providing any real solutions, upto the expectation of site. The empirical as well as simple slice methods which are being used for shallow slide in waste dump do not provide close solution for large scale dump material due to its limitations. All such methods are good for simple type of failure modes like circular failure, but they do not provide good solution for compound slope failure. Numerical solutions with high configuration fast computing tools help a lot to simulate the total geometry incorporating pertinent geomechanical paramters for understanding the stress, deformation and displacement activities in the entire slope mass. Numerical methods include finite element method; finite difference method, boundary element method and discrete element method, which have been used by various researchers. Some of the researchers made a combination of these methods to describe the dump slope behavior. Few example of slope simulation is given to underestand various parameters inflencing dump stability. 2 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF DUMP SLOPE

A finite difference modelling tool was used to analyse a coal dump slope (Singh and Singh, 2006; Khandelwal et al, 2008). To see the change in stress, strain and displacement within the slope mass, the height of the slope was varied from 80 to 200m. The slope angle was kept constant equal to angle of repose. In this case we have chosen 37. Both the conditions were simulated based on the field observations where geomaterial is highly to moderately weathered. Table 1 shows the height and slope angle of different slopes. Table 1. Geo-mechanical properties of the dump material. Model no. 1 2 3 4 28 Slope Angle (Degree) 37 37 37 37 Slope Height (m) 80 120 150 200 Upper bench height (m) 35 50 70 90 Lower bench height (m) 45 70 80 110

Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011. ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

FLAC is a 2D finite-difference modeling code from Itasca (2002), which models the stress strain response of a continuum material (e.g., soil or rock) to loading (static or dynamic). The advantages of the finite-difference code over the limit-equilibrium technique are that no failure path needs to be specified and the elastic and plastic behavior of the material can be included in the analysis. A factor of safety can be computed using the shear strength-reduction technique Dawson (1999) in the FLAC/Slope module Itasca (2002). Table 2 exhibits the physico-mechanical properties of dump material which were used as an input parameter for modeling of dump slope mass. Table 2. Physico-mechanical dump material. Physico-mechanical properties Density (g/cc) Porosity Cohesion (MPa) Angle of internal friction (degree) Upper Bench Rock 2.5 0.15 0.04 25 Lower Bench Rock 2.6 0.1 0.05 30

The type of failure of the dump slope is controlled by the dump geometry and the materials mechanical properties. In the present case, the dump maerial was weathered, fragmented sandstone of different types. The dump slope mostly fails in circular failure mode. The circular failure occurs when the individual particles in a soil or rock mass are very small compared with the size of slope. The slope angle is the major factor concerning the safety of the dump. In this study, although nearly all the dump slopes studied comprised of similar material, the height of the slope was changed to see the effect on the stability. FLAC has the capability to find the sliding surface and failure mechanism, while in limit equilibrium methods the initial location of the failure surface is defined for further analysis. FLAC also includes the effect of stress redistribution and progressive failure after movement has been initialized. The first model was simulated with 37 slope angle with a total height of 80m with two benches. A bench was created at the height of 40m from the base whose width is 10m. The factor of safety was found to be 1.12. The maximum shear strain rate at this stage was 6.00e05. Though, the FOS is 1.12 but slope indicates highly strained conditions which are indicated by resultant displacement vectors (Figure 2). In the next model, height of the slope was increased from 80m to 120m keeping all input parameters same to see the effect of height on FOS. The FOS was changed from 1.12 to 0.99 indicating the critical stability of the slope and variation in the stress distribution (Figure 3). Further, the height of the dump slope was increased upto 150m from 120m and the bench width of the slope was taken to be 15m as per the field observation. The FOS was further reduced to 0.95 with maximum shear strain rate being 2.5e-04 (Figure 4). With further increase in height of the dump slope up to 200m, the FOS decreased by another 10.5% to become 0.85, following the trend of decrease in FOS with the increase in the dump height (Figure. 5) it is difficult to accommodate more than 80 m of height of the dump without the treatment of the dump material.

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Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

Figure 2. Shear strain rate shown in FLAC slope model no.1.

Figure 3. Shear strain rate shown in model no.2.

Figure 4. Shear strain rate shown in model no.3. 30

Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011. ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

Figure 5. Shear strain rate shown in model no.4. 3 GROUND WATER AND WET CONDITION DUMP SIMULATION

Indian coal mine produce huge quantity of dump material and nearly 60-70% of coal is being used by power sectors. The pulverized coal after burning discharge huge amount of flyash and this fly ash pose serious problem to surrounding environment. Its safe disposal is a trouble. An attempt has been made by various agencies to maximise the use of fly ash to reduce the environmental stress load.One of the option is to mix it with dump material upto some extent. Hence the similar situation is simulated with ground water impact. To know the effect of ground water and wet condition in the slope, a model was developed based on geo-technical parameter obtained while testing the fly ash sample. Two slope height 90 and 120m were simulated. Lower slope height, this exercise has not been performed as it does not serve the purpose of maximum fly ash utilization as well as accommodation of dump material. A drastic reduction in FOS was observed in this condition. A visible tension crack developed behind the slope face, which may have developed due to pore water pressure. However in case of 120 m height the FOS was just above 1 (1.04) (Figures 6 & 7) under wet condition, but in dry condition (Figures 8, 9 and 10) it seems to be stable while mixing 30% fly ash. The wet condition slope is critically stable. 4 NUMERICAL SIMULATION WITH PFC

A discrete element code named PFC 2D is used to access the stability of dump slope. Simulation of dump slope with and without a vegetation cover was carried out and analysed. The effect of root system which penetrated up to approximately 1.5m from the dump surface was modelled by PFC 2D software and comparative results were discussed.

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Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

Figure 6. Effect of water saturation on 90m dump slope.

Figure 7. Effect of water saturation on 120m dump slope.

Figure 8. Maximum velocity vector of 120m dump slope with 30% fly ash. 32

Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011. ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

Figure 9. Stable dry slope of 120m dump (Maximum velocity vector).

Figure 10. Stable dry slope of 120m dump (Maximum Shear strain). The discrete element method (DEM) was introduced by Cundall and Strack (1979) explained the mechanical behaviour of assemblies of discs (2D) and spheres (3D). The method is based on the use of an explicit numerical scheme in which particles interaction are monitored contact by contact and the motion of the particles are modeled particle by particle. Normally, PFC2D uses forcedisplacement laws to specify the interaction between deformable dump materials and a law of motion, which determines displacements induced in the dump materials by out-of-balance forces. An ideal dump height of 60m with slope angle 37 was simulated where properties of dump materials without vegetation was taken into account. Similarly, simulation of dump slope was also done after considering the properties of dump material after vegetation were grown over the dump surface changing the slope angle of dump from 37 to 43. The surface layer up to which root penetrates varies from 1 to 1.5 meter (Chaulya et al., 1999). The geo-technical properties of dump material were determined in laboratory as per ISRM (1972, 1977, and 1981) standard and given in Table 3. 33

Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

Table 3. Comparison of mechanical properties obtained from numerical simulation of biaxial test and from laboratory experiments. Material Mechanical properties Mechanical Properties Mechanical Properties obtained obtained from from numerical laboratory modeling experiments Uniaxial compressive strength 4.91 4.86 (MPa) Elastic Modulus 31.0 29.8 (MPa) Poissons Ratio 0.211 0.221 Uniaxial compressive strength 5.624 5.98 (MPa) Elastic Modulus 34.5 34.0 (MPa) Poissons Ratio 0.208 0.214

Dump without vegetation

Dump with vegetation

The simulations of dump slopes were done in following different scenarios and results of each scenario are discussed below. Case1: Dump height 60m, Overall dump slope angle 37 Case 2: Dump height 60m, Overall dump slope angle 39 Case 1: A dump slope of height 60 m and slope angle 37 with vegetation was simulated. The root of the vegetation penetrated up to approximately 1 to 1.5m deep into the dump material. In the simulation study, the top surface of the dump was assigned the properties obtained after vegetation were grown (Figure 11). Vegetation improved the dump slope stability as there was no failure plane observed in the simulated slope. This is due to the reinforcement of dump material vegetation. The maximum displacement is less as compared to vegetation free dump slope (Figure 12). It is clear that, there is approximately 85.5% reduction in maximum displacement with vegetation cover keeping the same slope angle. The mechanical reinforcement of roots has increased the shear strength and cohesion of dump materials against the tensile stress (Mafian et.al, 2009).

Figure 11. Displacement vectors of the particles. 34

Rock Mechanics, Fuenkajorn & Phien-wej (eds) 2011. ISBN 978 974 533 636 0

Case 2: A 39 slope angle having 60m height with vegetation cover was simulated keeping all other parameter identical as in earlier case (Figure.12). Dump is stable but there are variations in magnitude of displacement as well as stress distribution pattern. There is a zone of higher displacement in lower part of the dump slope (Figure 12). The maximum value of the displacement is 3.27 which are insignificant in terms of slope stability.

Figure 12. A model of dump slope (slope angle=39), having vegetation along the slope and floor, showing displacement vectors of particles 5 CONCLUSION

The study provides the valuable information for dump slope stability problem in coal mines dump. Numerical simulation using FDM and PFC provides valuable results like more than 60 m high dump slope is not stable at 37o. PFC study indicates that vegetation can improve the stability of slope more than angle of repose. Dump can be accomodated at a higher angle with vegetation but the consequences can be severe if slope is steeper than 43, leading to failure. As the dump height is raised above 100m with a constant slope angle, there is a drastic reduction in the factor of safety. In inpit dumping, with flyash, the factor of safety varies with increase in the percentage on flyash mixed. Based on numerical simulation, proper protective and mitigative measures can be suggested for long term stability of dump. REFERENCES Babu, T.D., Kumar, P.D. & Singh, T.N., 1999. Dump slope stability and its impact on environment. Nat. Sem. on Practice and Prospect of Mining Industry in Central India. pp. 221-232. Chaulya, S.K., Singh, R.S., Chakraborty, M.K., Dhar, & B.B., 1999, Numerical modelling of 326 biostabilisation for a coal mine overburden dump slope. Ecological Modelling. 114: 275286. Cundall, P.A., & Strack, O.D.L., 1979. A discrete numerical model for granular assemblies. Geotechnique. 29: 4765. 35

Assessment of coal mine waste dump behaviour using numerical modeling

Dawson, E.M., Roth, W.H., & Drescher, A., 1999. Slope stability analysis by strength reduction. Geotechnique. 49(6): 835840. Duncan, J.M., 1996. State of the art: limit equilibrium and finite-element analysis of slopes. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering. 122(7): 577-596. Griffiths, D.V., & Lane, P.A., 1999. Slope stability analysis by finite elements. Geotechnique. 49(3): 387-403. ISRM, 1972. Suggested methods for determining water content, porosity, density, absorption and related properties and swelling and slake durability index properties. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci.Geomech. Abst. pp. 112. ISRM, 1977. Suggested methods for determining the strength of rock materials in triaxial compression. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. Geomech. 15: 4751. ISRM, 1981. Rock characterization testing and monitoring, ISRM suggested method. Int. Soc. Rock Mech. pp. 211. Itasca, 2002. FLAC/Slope (Version 4.0). Itasca Consulting Group, Minneapolis, MN. Itasca,2002. FLACFast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua (Version 4.0). Itasca Consulting Group, Minneapolis, MN. Khandelwal, M. & Singh, T.N., 2006. Prediction of blast induced ground vibration and frequency in opencast mines. J. of Sound and Vibration. 289: 711-725. Khandelwal, M., Monjezi, M., Dehghani, H. & Singh, T.N., 2008. Stability analysis of dump slope of a surface mine. Mining Engineers Journal. 9(10): 21-24. Kumar, M., Jain, A.K. & Singh, T.N., 2009. Blast vulnerability analysis of waste dump during production blasting. J. of Mines, Metals and Fuels. 57(10): 313-316 Mafian, S., Huat, B.B.K. & Ghiasi, V., 2009. Evaluation of root theories 344 and root strength properties in slope stability, Euro. J. of Sc. Res. 4: 594-607. Sarkar, K., Hydrose, M.K. & Singh, T.N., 2007. Assessment of dump slope stability in an iron ore Mine, Goa, India, Geominetech Symposium, ENTMS, Bhubaneswar. pp. 3133. Sazid, M., Singh, T.N. & Saharan, M.R., 2009. Risk analysis of mine dump slope stabilitya case study. Int. Conf. on Mine Advan. Tech. Jodhpur. pp. 321-326. Singh, A.P. & Singh, T.N., 2006. Assessing instability of coal mine waste dump. The Indian Mineral Industry Journal. pp. 113-118. Singh, T.N. & Chaulya, S.K., 1992. External dumping of overburden in opencast mine. Ind. Jl. of Engineers, 22(1 & 2), 65-73. Singh, T.N. & Hydrose, M.K., 2007. Dump slope stability analysis of an iron ore Mine, Goa. IMC-2007. Udaipur. pp. 143-151. Singh, T.N. & Premkrishnan. R, 2000. Ground vibrations due to blasting and its environmental impacts. IM and EJ. pp. 144-149. Singh, T.N., Barde, K.S., Purwar, N., Gupta, S. & Sarkar, K., 2007. Effects of heightening on overburden spoil dump stability. Mining Engg. Jl. 9(2): 16-23. Singh, T.N., Barde, K.S., Purwar, N., Gupta, S. & Sarkar, K., 2007. Assessing stability of waste dump a case sudy. Tenth Int. Symp. on Environmental Issues and Waste Management in Energy and Mineral Production. pp. 769-779. Singh, T.N., Monjezi, M., Sain, R. & Gupta, A.R., 2006. Instability prediction of waste dump in an opencast mine. Mining Engg. Jl. 8(4): 10-16. Singh, T.N., Singh, A.P. & Goyal, M., 1994. Stability of waste dump and its relation to environment. Ind. J. Cement Rev. 9(2): 15-21. Vishal, V., Pradhan, S.P. & Singh, T.N., 2010. Mine sustainable development vis-a-vis dump stability for a large open cast mine. Proceedings of International Conference on Earth Sciences and Engineering. pp. 1-7. 36