Recent Minefill Developments in Australia

Anthony G Grice'

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the contribution that backfill is making to the Australian mining industry and provides some information on the largest operations together with some novel ipplications. Each of the three major backfill types; hydraulic, rock and paste are discussed in turn with a focus on new ideas and advances in understanding, technology and operating practices. INTRODUCTION Backfill is an increasingly important component of Australian mining opemtions. Many of these mining operations are extracting deeper ore and have an increasing requirement for systematic ground support of pro(luction voids. Increasing resource recovery targets require the application of engineered backfill solutions in order to maintain the necessary ground stability for continued safe operations. At the same h e , the backfills must be designed to enable highly productive placement with the required flow and strength properties for the specific duty intended. While backfills are often cemented to achieve these performance criteria, the total cost of cement typically represents up to 60% of the backfill costs and the backfill in turn can represent up to 20% of the underground mining costs. The engineering efforts are focussed on achieving the required performance at the best overall cost. Backfill can introduce the hazard of possible inrush to the mine following the failure of a retaining barricade struchue. An accident occurred at Bronzewing Mine in Western Austdia that claimed the lives of three m i n e r s in June 2000 when a barricade failed and up to 18,000 cubic metres of hydraulic fill flowed into the workings. OVERVIEW OF BACKFILL IN AUSTRALIA
Mining with BackfW in Australia Underground mining operations using backfill in Australia account for some 34 million tonnes of production and 10 million cubic metres of void created annually. The ten largest mining operations with backfill account for 25 million tonnes of production and 8 million cubic metres void. A l l of these m i n e s fill most of the voids created. Table 1 shows a list of the ten largest Australian mining operations using backfill.

Principal Mining Engineer, Australian Mining Consultants, L191114 William Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000, Australia tgrice@ausmin.corn.au

Table 1- Ten largest Australian backfill operations Company Mine Orebody Metal WMC MUI Olympic Dam Copper Enterprise Kanowna Belle Bronzewing George Fisher Cannington Granites Osborne Various 1100 3000, 3500 Cu, Au, U Cu
-

Type* CAF, RF CRF, HF Paste, PRF CRF, RF CRF, HF CRF Paste CRF HF, RF

Production Mt 9,000,000 3,500.000

Void Mined ~ m ' 2,575,000 1,225,000

MIM
Delta Gold Normandy Yandal MUI BHP Mind Normandy NFM Placer Pacific Normandy

Cu Au

1,500,000 1,500,000 1,500,000 1,500,000 1,250,000 1200,000

550,500 550,000 500,000 450,000 425,000 375,000

Discovery & Central Various Various Callie Various

Au Zn, Ag, Pb Zn, Ag, Pb Au Cu, Au

Scuddles Zn RF, HF 1,200,000 350,000 Golden Grove *CAF = cemented aggregate fill, RF = rock fill, HF = hydraulic fill, Paste = pastefill, CRF = cemented rock fill

Backfii in Coal Mines During 1998, Wambo Mining Corporation (Wambo) placed backfill from surface into several short stub headings in front of a shallow coal longwall operation (Grice et al, 1999)'. Backfill was selected as the support method since it offered both the lowest costs and lowest risk. Flow and strength properties were determined in i x design consisting of coarse order to ensure that tight filling and effective support could be achieved. A m alluvial sand, flyash and cement mixed with water to a high slump was specified. Numerical modelling was used to determine loading and support response conditions. Fill was prepared in a temporary batching plant and placed using agitator trucks into segmented sections of the headings. The fill was left to cure and mining through the backfill commenced two months later. The higher loads expected on the coal fender between the fill and the shearer did not materialise. The shearer cut cleanly through the cured backfill and the contact with the roof was seen to exceed 75% of the length of the headings. No significant stress or cyclical loading phenomena were observed. Mining through the backfill continued without incident over the following 6 days, during which time the washery plant was supplied with a continual feed of coal and backfill m a t e r i a l .The backfill had been designed to sink in the washery plant. Wambo was able to achieve continuous production and eliminated the requirement for a longwall move. The backfill performed its primary function of ground control without incident. Other applications of backfdl in coal are c m n t l y under investigation and development. Backfii in Open Pits A number of mines, particularly in Western Australia, have made the transition from open pit to underground operations. Traditionally, this has required the establishment of a crown pillar between the pit and the underground in order to maintain stability and separation of the workings. As part of a cemented rock backfill system for the underground mine, Delta Gold's Kanowna Belle designed the highest stopes to daylight into the pit floor. The large stopes were mined and then filled with cemented rockfill to enable complete early extraction of the ore pillar zone. Following completion of the backfilling, the floor of the pit was then capped with impermeable clay to rninimise the risk of water ingress. Underground Tailings Disposal There has been an erroneous perception that pastefill or total tailings fill enables the storage of all tailings back underground. This may be the case for some very high grade polymetallic orebodies where the quantities of concentrate may be a significant volume of the ore feed. In one recent example, the licensing agreement for a proposed underground mine in northern Australia incorporated the requirement to place all tailings below ground level in order to rninimise environmental

disturbance. A study was carried out to determine the feasibility of such a condition. Due to the small content a s high and, combined with the swell factor, resulted in of valuable m i n d in the ore, the tailings content w higher tailings volume than ore mined Since the orebody was located within inert waste rock, the study investigated whether mining of tailings disposal silos would be effective. The waste rock could be stored with less environmental impact on surface or be used as feed for road base or to replace other locally quarried materials. The study concluded that an additional 40% of volume of the mine would be requkd for total storage of the tailings as pastefill and that the cost would be around three times that of conventional surface storage. HYDRAULIC FILL Hydraulic Fill is Widely Used Hydraulic fill is widely used in Australia in at least nine different operations, 2 located in Queensland, 3 in New South Wales, 2 in Western Australia and 2 in Tasmania. In order to rnaximise the safety of the operations there has been a progressive trend to increase placed slurry densities to values in excess of 70% solids by weight. Two of the newest plants were constructed to the higher density specifications and 2 others are being upgraded. Barricade Stability On 26 June 2000, a fill barricade at the base of a stope located towards the bottom of a mine ruptured and to enter the lower levels of the mine and the decline allowed a quantity of fill (estimated at around 18 000 d) (Torlach, 2000)'. The barricade was constructed of specially designed concrete block material to allow free drainage and the fill itself consisted of deslimed mill tailing, again designed to be free draining. Amonitoring system was in place to check the barricade and the last positive check was made about an hour before the incident with nothing untoward reported. Tragically, three miners were killed in the accident and investigations into the cause are continuing. Three hydraulic fill barricades have failed at other mines since last reported (Grice, 1998)~. In two of the other incidents, only minor quantities of hydraulic fill were mobilised following the failure (attributed to the erosion pipe mechanism) and m both cases fill had been placed at high densities and saturation levels were low. In these conditions the consequences of the incidents were significantly reduced. By contrast a fall of ground into a stope containing a small quantity of very low density hydraulic fill sluny resulted in failure of the banicade and subsequent loss of all of the saturated slurry. This tends to confirm previous observations that the consequence of a barricade failure is a function of the saturation level of the hydraulic fill. ROCKFILL

Developments in Rockfill All mines dispose some development waste materials into production stoping voids. Operations such as WMC's Junction Mine have used bulk rockfill as a primary backfill method to fill bench stopes and stabilise hangigwalls for much of the duration of the mining operations. Where exposures of the rockfill are required for pillar mining purposes, cement is added to achieve the required strength. MPI's Stawell Mine in Victoria uses development waste tipped into a sump area and covered i x the rock with cement slurry delivered to the underground mixing site by an agitator. A loader is used to m and slurry which is then tipped directly into the small stopes where it is exposed in vertical faces. The simple approach has enabled the specialised use of cemented fill to improve recoveries in locally high grade areas at a relativelv low cost (Guilfovle. ,XIOO'~~. M& commohly, mines crush and screen the rock in order to modify the sizing curve and, in some cases, either remove or add back fine sizes. Until recently, MIM's 1100 Orebody used a graded siltstone with cemented hydraulic fill to produce a high fines content cemented rockfill product. In recent years, development waste, heavy media rejects or granulated slag have replaced the siltstone. In several mines with low fines rocktill it has been observed that segregation occurs on a large scale and this results in altemahg bands of high and low strength fill. The high strength bands contain most of the fines and have a low porosity. By contrast, the low fines bands cansist of lightly cemented rubble with potential for large failure surfaces developing. Debris flow and grain flow mechanisms during the placement of cemented rockfill have been described @loss 1992' and 1996)~. Bloss noted that reduced segregation and lower porosity resulted when debris flow conditions prevailed. In these conditions, the coarser aggregate is transported within a dense slurry matrix.

This important observation led to the development of high fines rockfill, which generally results in higher strengths at reduced cement contents, compared to low fines crushed rockfill systems. These flow characteristics were originally observed within the cemented rockfill of Mount Isa Mines and are present at WMC's Olympic Dam. Some of the flow characteristics described resemble the behaviour of pastefill in that there is a measurable slump (yield stress) for these materials.

Kanowna Belle Experience Kanowna Belle mine introduced a crushed rockfill system using mine waste aushed to minus 40mm with all fines retained. The rock is introduced to a vertical rock pass and delivered to end tipping trucks via an apron feeder located at the underground loading station. On surface, cement was slunied and delivered by gravity pipeline to an agitation tank located next to the loading station. As trucks are loaded from the apron feeder, cement slurry is sprayed onto the rock pile, usually achieving good wetting. Trucks then travel to the tipping point and deliver the fill into the stope. As previously mentioned, initial filling operations were to stopes exposed in the floor of the open pit. Segregation was observed within the placed fill. A secondary issue emerged from the difficulty of achieving tight filling in the crowns of stopes. This was caused by the orebody geometry where stope crowns had flatter angles than the natural rill angle of the rockfill. Remote access was not practical and subsequent r o w n spans and increased instability of pillar stopes. pillar mining resulted in large c As part of a major review to investigate mining ore deeper in the mine, a backfill options review was conducted which assessed the experience gained from the early fill operations. This review highlighted the benefits available from a conversion to pastefill, which would address both of the issues raised above and solve a number of other anticipated didbution issues. A pastefill system is currently under construction.
Olympic Dam Experience Olympic Dam is one of the biggest backfilling operations in the world with annual placement approaching two million cubic metres of backfill per annum and with a requirement to increase further in the short term (Baldwin and Grice. 2000)'. Olympic Dam produces around 30Om3/hr of cemented aggregate fill, which is delivered by truck to 300mm boreholes drilled 400111 to each stope from surface. A typical m i x (dry weight) consists of 68% -65mm dolomitic limestone, 2 4 % sand, 2.9% Portland cement and 5 . 7 % flyash. The wet mix contains 9 . 5 % water and behaves as a non segregating slurry when transported in open end tipping trucks to the dropper holes. Flow properties are measured using a standard slump cone and strength properties with regular UCS tests. A range of mixes have been designed to produce fill strengths which range from 0 . 5 to 4 . 5 MPa and placed into stopes as determined by a three dimensional design tool based on the Tenaghi method of strength estimation. This spreadsheet permits assessment of the strength of fill masses as a function of the size, number and sequence of fill exposures that will take place. The fill is placed in zones of decreasing strength with height in the stope. This optimises cement consumption, a critical cost issue for such a large backfill system. Mining operations frequently require access through cured fill and Olympic Dam has established a number of procedures with respect to mining and support requirements of these drives. Several hundred metres of fill mining are carried out each year. The backfill system at Olympic Dam is tightly integrated into the mining operations with a strong engineering focus on achieving the required flow and strength properties. The independence of surface based filling and underground production eases the scheduling constraints to only the availability of stopes for filling and availability of cured fill masses for production blasting. All underground fill activities are coordinated by the surface filling contractor. Lanfranchi Experience In early 1999, WMC's Lanfianchi operation investigated the mining and backfilling options for the Skinner orebody. A series of sub level open stopes were designed which required cemented backfill. The study reviewed backfill options and concluded that a batched cemented rockfill prepared on surface and delivered to the stopes via a pair of vertical boreholes would meet the design, productivity and cost targets. The fill was specified with a high fines content and sufficient moisture content to promote flow mixing of the cemented aggregate fill within the stopes. The objective was to minimise porosity and minimise segregation. The fill strength was determined using the Tenaghi method. A mobile batching plant was installed and the two boreholes drilled. Filling commenced and towards the top of the stopes the fines content was further ncreased by the addition of tailings from the St Ives Gold tailings storage facility. This flattened the rill angle and resulted in tight filling of the primary stopes, an important requirement for maintaining stability dlning pillar mining.

Two of the fill masses were exposed sequentially on two opposing fill faces. When the fill was exposed during pillar mining, CMS surveys confinned that fill dilution was negligible. The Ladimchi experience demonstrated that temporary small scale backfill operations a u l d be set up and the product easily tuned to the mining requirements. The backfill system contributed to improved mining productivity and resulted in improved revenues for the mine (Sheppard, 1999)'. PASTEFILL Pastefill Developments Three pastefill systems are currently in o p t i o n in Australia. These are Goldfields' Henty Mine in Tasmania and BHP's Cannington and at Enterprise Mine in Queensland. A fourth plant is under constmction at Kanowna Belle in Western Aushalia. Junction Mine recently completed placement of pastefill into a crown pillar area and investigations are under way to design and build a larger scale system. Several other pastefill projects are under investigation around the country. Extensive research and development work has been carried out on pastefill in recent years with the objective of better understanding the design and operation of the systems. The main focus of this work has been to better understand the fundamental rheological properties of these particulate fluids and to improve mix designs in order to achieve design strengths at the lowest economic cost. In other unpublished investigations, a wide range of mixes consisting of full plant tailings, deslimed tailings, dune and alluvial sand and various crushed aggregates have been compared. There is a general trend in these results that suggests that including discrete aggregate particles within pastefill displaces cement and increases the friction angle and results in stronger and cheaper fills that can be readily placed by borehole and pipe techniques. When considering the previous discussion of other rockfill types it can be seen that there is a continuum of backfill materials extending from pastefill to high fines cemented rockfill. Henty Experience Henty Mine uses paste aggregate fill prodwed by the addition of -20mm crushed quartzite to 11l plant tailings. Henderson et al (1998)9 described the design and startup of the system and Colbourne (2000)'~ discusses recent o p t i n g experience. Colbourne notes that paste aggregate fill is used to backfill all working areas of the mine including flat backing, benches and uphole crown pillar retreat under pastefill. One innovative practice is to bore fill holes through previously piaced paste in order to fill lower benches in the mine. One of the biggest advantages that paste offers is the flexibility to mine alongside, underneath or through the backfill. This greatly increases the ability of the mining operation to cater for sudden changes in orebody geometry and grade. Cannington Experience Initial plant design, construction and commissioning was discussed by Skeeles (1998)" and early operating experiences by Revel1 (2000)". Geotechnical investigations are discussed by Winch (1999)". The system is currently delivering l20m~/hr of pastefill into the mine. Bloss and Revel1 ( 2 ~ )comprehensively ' ~ discuss the current operations of the pastefill system. They describe the flow regime that bas been designed to maximise the use of the available gravity driving head by modifjmg the yield stress of the paste to keep the surFace borehole as 111 as possible. By this means, for any given pipe reticulation, the paste pulp density will be maximised resulting in reduced pipe wear and stronger pastefill for a given cement content. Enterprise Experience MIM's Enterprise Mine pastefill system was commissioned in December 2000 and is capable of delivering 250 tomes per hour through each of two parallel paste s t . in a continuous process. Chen at al (1998)" describe investigations at Mount Isa to improve flow and strength characteristics of high pulp density slurries by selective desliming and dewatering to modify the component particle size distributions. Kuganathan (2001)'~ reports that the implementation of results of this work has the potential to save AUD 1.75 million per m u m through a reduction of 0.5% of binder usage. Junction Experience the high fines cemented rockill operations at the adjacent Ladimchi Mine, Building upon the e w e n c e h WMC's J d o n mine reviewed backfill options for crown pillar recovery in the lower parts of their operation ~ .review concluded that pastefill could be produced from dry tailings backloaded from (Sheppard, 2 ~ ) ' The the St Ives Gold tailings storage facility. A r m d 15,000rn3 of pastefdl was required for crown pillar replacement and a rheology and strength testing program was canied out to determine the required properties. A target yield stress of 250 Pa was used that was achieved at a pulp density of 76% solids by weight for the 2.7 SG tailings. Target strength of 650 kPa

was calculated for the pastefill and the strength testing program identified that this could be achieved by 5% cement after 28 days curing. A temporary batch mixing plant processed the backloaded tailings, cement and fresh water to produce a low slump paste for gravity delivery down a lined vertical borehole and a series of short horizontal pipes. A number of handling problems were experienced with sticky tailings but the stopes were all successfully filled with paste. Planning is currently under way to build a larger and more permanent plant with higher capacity for the lower part of the mine. CONCLUSIONS The volume of placed backfill in Australia is continuing to increase. A wide range of backfill types are in use, primarily dictated by the availability of suitable waste materials on site and the cost of supplying binders to design and produce the required backfill. A trend to customised fills based around various combinations of dewatered 111 plant tailings and either sand or aggregate addition is emerging. The engineering focus is always to produce the most economical mix that achieves the flow and strength requirements of the system. Despite considerable efforts, elimination of barricade failures in hydraulic fill has not yet been zhieved. With rockfill there has been a move toward high fines non segregating mixes, which have shown to be of high quality and low cost. Pastefill usage is rapidly increasing, driven by the finer tailings streams emerging from the Aushalian metallurgical plants and the need to minimise the environmental impact of mining. Our understanding of the design and operation of these systems has increased considerably in recent times. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Australian Mining Consultants for permission to publish this paper along with a number of the companies mentioned in the example operations. I would also like to ackuowledge the contributions of colleagues Mil Dorricott, Martyn Bloss, Matt Revell, Max Sheppard, Gary Baldwin, Karl Guilfoyle, David Boger and Sam Clayton for some of the lively discussions that have arisen during the development of some of the projects mentioned above. REFERENCES 1. Grice, AG, Finn, T & Smith, PA (1999) Innovative use of backfill to enable continuous longwall mining International Underground through old headings at Homestead Colliery, Wambo Mining Corporation, Coal Conference, 15-18 June 1999, eds BK Hebblewhite, JM Galvin & AJ Broome, pp 75-83 2. Torlach, J (2000) Potential Hazards Associated with Mine Fill, Safety Bulletin 55, w e n t of Mines and Energy of Western Australia, June 2000 3. Grice, AG (1998) Stability of Hydraulic Bacffill Barricades, Sixth International Symposium on Mining with Back!ill, AusIMM, Brisbane, April 1998 4. Guilfoyle, K (2000) Personal communication 5. Bloss, ML (1992) Prediction of cemented rock fill stability - Design procedures and modelling techniques, PhD Thesis,Department of Mining and hietallugical Engineering, University of Queensland Resomes 6. Bloss, ML (1996) Evolution of Cemented Rock Fill at Mount Isa Mines Limited, Engineering, Vol. 5, No. 1 (19%), 2343, Imperial College Press 7. Baldwin, G & Grice, AG (2000) Engineering the New Olympic Dam Backfill System, Proc MassMin 2000, AusIMM, Brisbane Oct-Nov 2000 8. Sheppard, M (1999) Personal communication 9. Henderson A, Jardine G & Woodall C (1998) The Implementation of Paste Fill at the Henty Gold Mine, Minefill 98, AusIMM, April 14- 16 1998, Brisbane 10. Colbourne, C (2000) Underground Backfill - Henty Gold Mine, Paste Technology 2000 Seminar, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, May 2000, Perth 11. Skeeles, BET (1998) Design of paste backfill plant and distribution system for the Cannington project, Proc. MineFill98, AusIMM, Melbourne 12. Revell, M (2000) Cannington Paste Fill - Taking the pig out of paste, Paste Technology 2000 Seminar, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, May 2000, Perth 13. Winch, CM (1999) Geotechnical Char;lcteristics and Stability of Paste Backfill at BHP Cannington Mine, Bachelor of Engineering n Civil Engineering Thesis, James Cook University, October 1999, unpublished. 14. Bloss, ML & Revell, M (2000) Cannington Pastefill System - Achieving Demand Capacity, Proc. MassMin 2000, AusIMM, 29th October - 2ndNovember, Brisbane, Queensland

15. Chen, JJZ, Potvin, Y & Kuganathan, K (1998) The investi ation of high density and paste fills for the 9 International Symposium on Mining with Enterprise Mine Expansion Project at Mount I s a , Proc 6' B~kfill, pp. 29-33 (AuslMM) 16. Kuganathan, K (2001) MIM launches pastefill plant, Australia's Mining Monthly, March 2001 17. Sheppard, M (2000) Personal communication