ROCK BURST
ROCK BURST
A rock burst is a spontaneous, violent fracture of rock that can
occur in deep mines. The opening of a mine shaft relieves
neighboring rocks of tremendous pressure, which can literally cause
the rock to explode as it attempts to re-establish equilibrium.
Rock bursts are a serious hazard; in South Africa, they kill roughly
20 miners each year.
Rock bursts basically depend on the size and depth of the
excavation.
ROCK BURST
Rock burst can be defined exactly as “the sudden failure
caused by the stresses in rocks”, (it resembles fragmentation by
explosives).
It occurs with sharp load noise, with shaking of the
surroundings with an ejection of coal (in case of coal mining)
or rock along large quantity of dust. Rock burst can also be felt
even at the surface to some distance.
ROCK BURST
The rock burst are dangerous to mine workers and working
(support are sometimes seriously damage or destroyed
completely) can disturb work of mine.
Following are the main natural factors which can cause rock
burst.
o Presence of very strong rock in the roof and floor.
o the danger of rock burst increases with the increase of depth of
working exceeds 350m.
o Strong coal with good elastic properties.
ROCK BURST
To better understand rock burst let’s discuss fracture zones,
there are three of them, namely;
• (i) Inclined shear fractures.
• (ii) Cleavage fracture.
• (iii) Vertical shear fractures.
The later one is the more likely the origin of rock burst, rock
burst are violent rock failure
ROCK BURST
The violent rock burst or rock failure has been considered as
one of the major hazards when mining hard rock at depth.
When excavating are made underground significant changes in
the potential and strain energies of the rock is potentially
occurred.
The potential energies of the mass of rocks shattered from the
excavation process and hoisting to the surface is increased by
an amount equal to the product of the rock mass of the broken
rock, the gravitational acceleration and the depth from where
the rock is hoisted,
ROCK BURST
Conversely the potential energy of the intake rock around the
excavation is decreased by the angle of product of the origin
traction that existed across the surface of the excavation before
they are mined and the displacement of these surfaces that
resulted from mining.
If all the stresses remained constant, the rock behaves
elastically and the displacement of the surfaces of the
excavation are in sufficient produce closer to the excavations.
One half of the decrease in the potential energy of the rock
around the excavation is stored as concentration of elastic
strain energy in the rock around the excavations and other half
must be dissipated or released.
ROCK BURST
The origin of rock burst can also be explained as they
Rock bursts result from brittle fracturing of rock, causing it to
collapse rapidly with violent sapling of rock that is
approximately 100 to 200 tones, or more. This release of
energy reduces the potential energy of the rock around the
excavation.
Another explanation is that the changes brought about by the
mine's redistribution of stress trigger latent seismic events,
deriving from the strain energy produced by its geological
aspects.
ROCK BURST
The likelihood of rock bursts occurring increases as the depth
of the mine increases.
Rock bursts are also affected by the size of the excavation (the
larger the more risky), becoming more likely if the excavation
size is around 180 m and above. Induced seismicity such as
faulty methods of mining can trigger rock bursts. Other causes
of rock bursts are the presence of faults, dykes, or joints.
