Rockburst Hazard Evaluation Using an Extended COPRAS Method with Interval-Valued Fuzzy Information

Rockburst is a major disaster in deep mining engineering, which can cause serious injury, death and economic losses. This study aims to solve rockburst hazard evaluation problems and determine the hazard levels of mines under uncertain circumstances. To this end, a novel multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) method was proposed in an interval-valued fuzzy context. The main contributions are three-fold. First, considering the heterogeneity of rock masses and the complexity of mining engineering, interval-valued fuzzy numbers (IVFNs) were adopted to express initial indicator information. Second, accounting for the uncertainty of indicator weights, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and entropy methods were extended with IVFNs to determine fuzzy indicator weights comprehensively. Third, the complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) approach was extended with IVFNs to determine the rockburst hazard level. Finally, the proposed method was applied to evaluate rockburst hazards in the Jiaojia gold mine, and the ranking results were consistent with field status. Meanwhile, sensitivity and comparison analyses were performed to reveal the stability and effectiveness of the proposed method. The results indicated that the extended COPRAS method was reliable for rockburst hazard evaluation in deep mining engineering.

Automated summary

This study proposes a novel multicriteria decision-making method to solve rockburst hazard evaluation problems and determine the hazard levels of mines under uncertain circumstances. The method adopts interval-valued fuzzy numbers to express initial indicator information, extends the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and entropy methods with interval-valued fuzzy numbers to determine fuzzy indicator weights comprehensively, and extends the complex proportional assessment approach with interval-valued fuzzy numbers to determine the rockburst hazard level. The proposed method is reliable for rockburst hazard evaluation in deep mining engineering, as validated in the case study of the Jiaojia gold mine.