Block Caving Induced Instability Analysis using FDEM Available to Purchase

World-wide mining operations utilize block caving as one of the most cost-effective techniques for ore extraction. Block caving has been addressed in the past by numerous discontinua methods to include Discrete Element Method (DEM), Discontinuous Deformation Analysis (DDA), Combined Finite-Discrete Element Method (FDEM), etc. However, most of these analyses were either limited to 2D or to elastic material representation. In this paper a representative 3D block caving problem is simulated using FDEM. Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Geophysics team conducted the modeling utilizing their in-house FDEM code, MUNROU. MUNROU is a fully parallel, 2D/3D FDEM code which utilizes material models that account for a number of plasticity effects, as well as has the capability to model explosive effects, irregular shapes and fracture initiation and propagation. Previously problems of this nature and size were un-tractable in 3D. However, the recent performance improvements seen in MUNROU through the implementation of state of the art parallelization algorithms (see Computational Mechanics of Discontinua, Wiley 2011), have prompted our team to begin intensive efforts to address real world problems, such as block caving. The code’s inherent capability to address fracture and fragmentation processes at laboratory scale level has been consistently proven in the past. In this paper the feasibility of extending MUNROU to large space scales in 3D is demonstrated. With this improved capability it is now expected that future analyses efforts can concentrate on 3D phenomenological considerations such as jointing, frictional fault behavior, etc.