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3 SHRINKAGE STOPING
J ACK H A P T O N S T A L L 18.3.1 INTRODUCTION
Shrinkage stoping is a vertical, overhand mining method whereby most of the broken ore remains in the stope to form a working floor for the miners. Another reason for leaving the broken ore in the stope is to provide additional wall support until the stope is completed and ready for drawdown. Stopes are mined upward in horizontal slices. Normally, about 35% of the ore derived from the stope cuts (the swell) can be drawn off (shrunk) as mining progresses. As a consequence, no revenues can be obtained from the ore remaining in the stope until it is finally extracted and processed for its mineral values. The method is labor intensive and cannot be readily mechanized. It is usually applied to ore bodies on narrow veins or ore bodies where other methods cannot be used or might be impractical or uneconomical. The method can be easily applied to ore zones as narrow as 4 ft (1.2 m), but can also be successfully used in ore widths up to 100 ft (30 m). Logically, the broken ore should be free flowing and not pack in the stope. Neither the ore nor adjacent country rock should contain undue amounts of clay or other sticky material to cause the ore to hang together in the stope and either be difficult or impossible to draw. Additionally, the ore should not readily oxidize, which may cause the broken pile to re-cement itself, and consequently hang up. Oxidation can also have an adverse effect on ore dressing. Ore should be fairly continuous along the strike of the vein or ore body in order to avoid mining extensive amounts of waste as dilution from the stope back. However, small waste areas may be mined around and left as random pillars. Consideration must also be given to the plunge or rake of the ore body, especially where the entire ore body may be mined as a single stope (Fig. 18.3.1 rather than as pre-established stope panels with defined vertical end lines. A stope with a shallow plunge or rake ( < 50) may be very difficult to mine by shrinkage methods because the ore moves away too quickly from the predeveloped extraction system (Fig. 18.3.2). Additionally, stopes where ore abruptly extends for great distances beyond stope end lines are also difficult to mine because they often require much additional development work to the stope extraction system (Fig. 18.3.3), especially raising.
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SHRINKAGE STOPING
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down, and the swell is extracted through the drawholes, either with rail-mounted mucking machines or load-haul-dumps (LHDs) (Fig. 18.3.4).
Holes are loaded with ANFO products or water gels and even with slurry blasting agents. Initiation is commonly with non-electric methods, but electric blasting is also practiced. After a cut has been blasted in a stope, drawdown of the 35% swell is necessary, after which the muck pile must be leveled to facilitate drilling of the next cut. Leveling of the pile can be done by hand shovels in the case of small stope, with 2- or 3drum slushers in larger or longer stopes, and even with LHDs in large stopes. After leveling, drilling of the next stope cut, raising of the manways, and so forth are done to continue the mining cycle. Variations for the establishment of openings for manways, ventilation raises, or service ways may include installation of strategically placed timber cribbed openings, steel culverts or rings, or timber sets within the broken ore area. These installations may be very desirable during the mining phase, but may create safety problems and nuisances with the collapse of the materials used to construct these openings. Pinning, stulling, or wedging these installations to the stope walls may prevent their destruction during drawdown; materials from a destroyed manway may be drawn down with the broken ore into the chutes or drawholes and cause hangups. A stope should have strong, self-supporting walls to permit the application of shrinkage stoping. Dilution through scaling of
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must either be washed down with water, bombed down with explosives, picked down by miners (a practice not recommended), abandoned, or re-mined. In any case, a hung-up stope is a costly and dangerous problem, and shrinkage stoping should not generally be used where the ore has a tendency to hang up. Stopes should usually be drawn down systematically, drawing the pile evenly so if the stope walls do peel or slough, the waste remains atop the pile and does not trap broken ore rilled above the pile. Once a stope drawdown is started, the operators control over the walls, pillar recovery, etc., is minimal and in most cases, the re-entry of miners into a stope under active drawdown would be considered too great a safety hazard to risk. Stopes can be drawn down from strategically placed chutes or from drawpoint crosscuts. Haulage from the stope extraction points may be done with rail equipment or LHDs and/or trucks. Chutes should be robustly designed and constructed to avoid destroying them through blasting of large slabs in them. Stopes may also be extracted through slusher trenches developed below the stope.
walls can preclude use of the method. Good mining practice coupled with state and federal regulations may dictate a least a minimum ground support program. Wall and back support may be accomplished by leaving random or even systematic pillars. Pillars left in ore zones may be drilled off and blasted upon drawdown of the stope. Traditionally, timber stulls fitted with plank headboards have been installed to support suspicious slabs or areas of bad ground of stope walls. Horizontal stulls and cribbing are also used to support loose areas of stope backs; however, the timbers may be subsequently buried in the muck pile upon shooting the next stope back, and may become a hazard or, at the very least, a nuisance, upon drawdown of the stope. Rock bolting has evolved into the preferred mode of wall and back support. Mechanical as well as grouted types of bolts are used. Correct installation of bolts in the walls of narrow shrinkage stopes may be difficult because of the lack of room to drill the bolt hole perpendicular to the stope wall as well as to install the required length of rock bolt. Sampling of narrow shrinkage stope backs is usually done by either taking a channel or chip sample by hand or through mechanical means. Sampling is usually done at a systematic interval (say, 5 ft or 1.5 m) along the entire back, ends, and in some cases, the ribs of the stope after every stope cut. In wider stopes, drill sampling of the back and ribs can be done. The drill sample may criss-cross the stope back on a predetermined pattern. Drill cutting samples are collected in a sample bag through a hose and funnel or other device.
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18.3.7). In many cases, this is done as described in the longhole variation. Given a large enough opening, conventional shrinkage stoping of a shaft or raise may be justified. Inclined shrinkage refers to a rill stoping adaptation where multiple faces or benches for drilling are carried along the back of the stope as it is mined upward (Fig. 18.3.5). Stopes are developed conventionally over pillars and chutes or over timber sets fitted with chutes on centers of about 25 ft (7.6 m). The advantage of carrying the stope in benches is that multiple faces can be drilled in a given shift where it is desirable to drill the stope with airleg-type drills rather than stopers. Longhole shrinkage (Fig 18.3.6) is developed conventionally as described previously. The exception is that drilling of the stope is done from vertical raises driven through the ore zone on 50- to 100-ft (15- to 30-m) centers. Raises can be developed with raise climbers or through cage raising techniques. The raise climber or the cage becomes the entry and exit vehicle as well as the platform for drilling and loading. Parallel longholes are drilled along the strike of the ore body and loaded from the raises. Initiation normally is done from a safe area on the service level above the stope. Shafts, winzes, or large break raises for blasthole or sublevel caving stopes may be developed through shrinkage methods (Fig.
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O RE R ESERVE . Mine commenced with 193,800 tons (176,200 t) averaging 11.5 oz/ton (400 g/t). MINING METHOD. Shrinkage stoping. E QUIPMENT. 1-yd3 (0.8-m3) LHDs, 2-drum air slushers, stopes and jacklegs, on-highway trucks. PRODUCTIVITY. 7.7 tons (7.0 t)/employee-shift in stope.
18.3.7 SUMMARY
Under most economic evaluations, the labor intensity of shrinkage stoping precludes its widespread application in modern mining situations. However, it may be the only possible method applicable in the case of a mine in which the ore bodies occur in very narrow veins and cannot be stoped by other methods. Shrinkage may also be used in special situations where small ore blocks cannot be extracted economically any other way or in conjunction with other stoping methods.
18.3.7.1 Parameters
The following is based on Boshkov and Wright (1973), Lucas and Haycocks (1973), Morrison and Russell (1973), and Lyman (1982): Ore characteristics: requires strong ore, non-oxidizing ore, ore that does not pack or stick together, and ore that does not spontaneously combust. Host rock characteristics: requires strong to moderately strong walls. Deposit shape: almost any shape but should have uniform dip and boundaries. Deposit dip: greater than angle of repose (> 45), and preferably steeper than 60. Deposit size: narrow to moderate width (3 to 100 ft, or 1 to 30 m); length minimum of 50 ft (15 m) to unlimited panel stopes on long strike lengths. Ore grade: moderate to high.
REFERENCES
Boshkov, S.H., and Wright, F.D., 1973, Underground Mining Systems and Equipment , SME Mining Engineering Handbook, Sec. 12, A.B. Cummins and I.A. Given, eds., SME-AIME, New York, pp. 12.1 to 12.13. Hamin, H., 1982, Choosing an Underground Mining Method, Underground Mining Methods Handbook, W.A. Hustrulid, ed., SMEAIME, New York. Haptonstall, J.C., 1980, La Libertad, Making a Small Mine Work In Mexico, World Mining, Vol. 33, No. 5, May, pp. 4247. Hustrulid, W.A., 1982, Shrinkage Stoping at the Idarado Mine, SME Underground Mining Methods Handbook, Sec. 3.1, Chap. 3, W.A. Hustrulid, ed., SME-AIME, New York, pp. 495507. Lewis, R.S., and Clark, G.B., 1964, Mining Methods, Elements of Mining, Chap. 9, 3rd ed., Wiley, New York, pp. 249261. Lucas, J.R., and Haycocks, C., eds., 1973, Underground Mining Systems and Equipment, SME Mining Engineering Handbook, Chap. 12, A.B. Cummins and I.A. Given, eds., SME-AIME, New York, pp. 12.1 to 12.262. Lyman, W., 1982, Introduction to Shrinkage Stoping, SME Underground Mining Methods Handbook, Sec. 3.1, Chap. 1, W.A. Hustrulid, ed., SME-AIME, New York, pp. 485489. Morrison, R.G., and Russell, P.L., 1973, Selecting a Mining Method: Rock Mechanics, Other Factors, SME Mining Engineering Handbook, Sec. 9, A.B. Cummins and I.A. Given, eds., SME-AIME, New York, pp. 9.1 to 9.22. Smith, M., 1988, Trackless Mining at JCI, Mining Magazine, Vol. 158, No. 4, Apr., pp. 264273. Wyllie, R.J.M., 1988, El Indio, Engineering and Mining Journal, Vol. 180, No. 3, Mar., pp. 3438.
18.3.7.2 Features
The following is based on Morrison and Russell (1973), Hamrin (1982), and Lyman (1982): Advantages. 1. Small to moderate production rates. 2. Gravity drawdown of stope. 3. Simple method, especially for small mines. 4. Low capital investment, some mechanization possible.