An Application of Rock Engineering System for Assessment of the Rock Mass Fragmentation: A Hybrid Approach and Case Study

Rock mass fragmentation process plays a major role in the design of the block cave mining. To assess rock mass fragmentation, identification and determination of influencing parameters are crucial. In most case studies, the cross-impact or indirect interaction of influencing parameters has not been considered in the assessment of rock mass fragmentation. The aim of this paper is to present a hybrid approach to consider the direct and indirect effects of influencing parameters on rock mass fragmentation by use of classic rock engineering system (RES) and matrices impact cross multiplication applied to classification method (MICMAC). The most important effective parameters in the system were identified and ranked based on both RES and hybrid approach. Thereafter, the indirect fragmentation index was calculated for RENO and Diablo Regimente mines in Chile and Kemess mine in Canada. An appropriate consistency was found between the results of the hybrid approach and available fragmentation data of the respective mines. The result of the analysis showed that the interaction of the geometrical and operational parameters has increased while the interaction of the geomechanical parameters, due to being less susceptible to change of the other parameters, has decreased in the hybrid approach compared to the RES. The geomechanical parameters showed the highest impact on the system and the lowest share of interaction in the system. The geometrical and operational parameters showed a high level of interaction, in the system, which the system had low influence on them.