Estimation of optimum geometric configuration of mine dumps in Wardha valley coalfields in India: a case study

Abstract

The Wardha valley coalfields, situated in the western part of India, contribute to more than 7% of the national coal production.  The open-pit mining methods are the modes of exploitation of coal in the majority of the mines in the area. Due to the increased depth of working and higher stripping ratio, the output of waste overburden is increased. The challenges are the scarcity of the available land for dumping waste overburden geo-material safely. Optimization of the mine dump slope geometry is the only available alternative in the hands of the management in order to increase the life of the projects and continue the production of coal. This investigation specifically addresses this issue, and proposes a combination of the optimum geometric configurations of the dump slope. This work utilizes the computational power of the numerical modeling technique in order to solve a large number of alternatives and zero them down to the optimum combination. The numerical modeling is considered as a major external factor that contributes to the mine dump's instability. This work shows an 18% increase in the dumping waste material volume in the present condition. This investigation also reveals that double stage dumping is comparably better in optimizing the dump slope configuration.