With the decrease of shallow mine resources, developing deep underground resources has become an inescapable reality in mining industries all over the world. However, deep underground mining is faced with many problems. The most distinct difficulty in deep underground mining is mining disturbance and " three high;” that is, high stress, high temperature and high pore water pressure. In addition, rock mechanics characteristics are very challenging and frequently cause increase of hazards, such as rock bursts, water invasion, and instability of goaf, all of which have high incidence rates and complex hazard mechanisms. This paper analyzes the rock burst mechanism theories, including strength theory, outburst proneness theory, energy theory, and instability theory. Main discriminations of rock burst include stress discrimination, energy discrimination, and lithology discrimination, among others. Rock burst is related with rock physical parameters (e.g., strain, stress, temperature, acoustic emission), so we can improve the forecast of rock bursts by researching changes of these parameters. With the goal of reducing the occurrence of rock bursts, this paper offers some preventive and control measures which are of greatest theoretical and practical significance to avoid rock-burst-related occurrences in the development of deep underground mining, to reduce the cost of mining under deep cover, and to improve overall economic efficiency.
With the decrease of shallow mine resources, the traditional living space on the Earth will no longer meet the requirements of the human race, so exploitation of deep resources will be necessary. “Deep” engineering is always developed with “deep mining engineering.” The International Society of Rock Mechanics (ISRM) uses the depth of hard rock softening as the deep engineering boundary. Suppose that the density of overlying strata is 2500 kg/m2, the critical depth of hard rock softening is 500 m. Therefore, it may be asserted that operations in depths of more than 500 m require deep engineering; operations in depths of less than 500 m require shallow engineering. Based on rock damage phenomena which occur in differing depths, deep engineering can be divided into three types: deeper engineering, ultra-deep engineering and extremely deep engineering. On the basis of this deep engineering definition, in order to more fully express the definition of deep engineering, the terms of “absolute engineering” and “relative engineering” are put forward. Absolute engineering is mining engineering in depths between 1000 and 1500 m, the definition for which mining engineering depth is the defining criterion. Relative engineering is mining engineering during which a hard rock mass experiences rock bursts, gas outbursts, and during which soft rock can experience large deformation damage. The term relative engineering, then, uses engineering disaster phenomena as the defining criterion [1,2]. Main hazards in deep miming include rock bursts, water invasion, gas bursts, roof collapse, and instability of goaf, with rock bursts clearly the most significant undesirable occurrence.
Rock burst is one of several dynamic phenomena in mining. This dynamic disaster generally happens when the rock mechanical system reaches ultimate strength and the flexible energy accumulated in rock releases suddenly, abruptly, and fiercely.
