Enhancement of the rock mass quality in underground iron ore mining through application of resource-saving technologies

Abstract

Annotation In terms of mining and geological structure, ore deposits are complex-structured and composed of single, parallel-contiguous ore bodies. The reserves of barren or ore inclusions with the useful component content less than the cut-off grade of the deposit on the whole make 5-12% for natural-rich ores, and 10-15% for natural-lean ores. Application of conventional systems to mining complex-structured ore deposit areas underground reduces the iron content in the mined ore mass by 3-6% in relation to the main content of the useful component in the ore deposit or increases ore losses 1.5-2.0 times of the standard ones. This leads to a decrease in efficiency of mining the reserves, and as a result, a loss of the world sales market. Application of the resource-saving technologies reduces ore losses and dilution in underground mining, thereby reducing the cost of ore mass processing. As compared with conventional systems, the proposed options of mining systems with ore caving enable increasing the average iron content in the mined ore mass by 2.37-7.03% without increased ore production costs. These indicators are confirmed by laboratory tests on models with natural materials, considering the scale of modeling.