Watson, BPKuijpers, JSStacey, TR2010-12-232010-12-232010-10Watson, BP, Kuijpers, JS and Stacey, TR. 2010. Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars. The Journal of The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Vol. 110, pp 581-5910038-223Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10204/4711Copyright: 2010 Southern African Institute of Mining and MetallurgyThe Bushveld platinum group metal deposits are two distinct, shallow-dipping stratiform tabular orebodies which strike for many hundreds of kilometres. Mining is extensive, with depths ranging from close-to-surface to 2 300 m. The mining method is a variation of planar open stoping. Pillars are widely employed to support the open stopes. In the deeper levels, in-stope pillars are required to fail in a stable manner soon after being cut, and the residual pillar strength is used to stabilize the hanging wall. These pillars are commonly known as crush pillars. Little work has been done in the past to determine pillar peak and residual strengths, and pillars have been designed using experience and formulae developed for other hard-rock mines. This has led to over and undersize pillars with consequential loss of ore, pillar bursts and potential collapses. This paper describes a crush pillar design methodology, and provides design charts. Three mining environments were incorporated in the investigations, which included underground and laboratory measurements, analytical solutions, numerical models and back analyses. The results of the study are suitable for the areas where the research was carried out, and may also be applied with caution in other similar environments.enCrush pillar designPeak pillar strengthResidual pillar strengthIn-situ measurementsDesign chartsMiningMetallurgyArticleWatson, B., Kuijpers, J., & Stacey, T. (2010). Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4711Watson, BP, JS Kuijpers, and TR Stacey "Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars." (2010) http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4711Watson B, Kuijpers J, Stacey T. Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars. 2010; http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4711.TY - Article AU - Watson, BP AU - Kuijpers, JS AU - Stacey, TR AB - The Bushveld platinum group metal deposits are two distinct, shallow-dipping stratiform tabular orebodies which strike for many hundreds of kilometres. Mining is extensive, with depths ranging from close-to-surface to 2 300 m. The mining method is a variation of planar open stoping. Pillars are widely employed to support the open stopes. In the deeper levels, in-stope pillars are required to fail in a stable manner soon after being cut, and the residual pillar strength is used to stabilize the hanging wall. These pillars are commonly known as crush pillars. Little work has been done in the past to determine pillar peak and residual strengths, and pillars have been designed using experience and formulae developed for other hard-rock mines. This has led to over and undersize pillars with consequential loss of ore, pillar bursts and potential collapses. This paper describes a crush pillar design methodology, and provides design charts. Three mining environments were incorporated in the investigations, which included underground and laboratory measurements, analytical solutions, numerical models and back analyses. The results of the study are suitable for the areas where the research was carried out, and may also be applied with caution in other similar environments. DA - 2010-10 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Crush pillar design KW - Peak pillar strength KW - Residual pillar strength KW - In-situ measurements KW - Design charts KW - Mining KW - Metallurgy LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2010 SM - 0038-223X T1 - Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars TI - Design of Merensky Reef crush pillars UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4711 ER -