Sensitivity Analysis of Internal Dragline Dump stability: Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The stability of mine waste dump is of paramount importance from economic and safety point of view. The present paper deals with the stability analysis of an internal dragline dump of an opencast coal mine by finite element method to classify input parameters in terms of sensitivity. Sensitivity analysis has been carried out for geometrical and geotechnical parameters of dump slope. It has been concluded from the results that "friction angle" is a more sensitive parameter as compared to the cohesion of dump material. The geometrical parameters of "slope angle" and "height of dragline dump" are classified as very high sensitive. The "height of main dump" could be classified as least sensitive, whereas, "gradient of the seam" and "thickness of coal rib" as medium sensitive parameters. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.