Technical Paper: Quantifying Transitional Rock Mass Disturbance

In 2018 Nick Rose presented his paper Quantifying Transitional Rock Mass Disturbance in Open Pit Slopes Related to Mining Excavation at the Slope Stability 2018 Conference in Seville. This paper discusses a new method to define Hoek’s Disturbance factor (D), a key input parameter of the 2002 Hoek-Brown strength criterion, the industry standard for defining rock mass strength. Hoek’s Disturbance factor accounts for the effects of blasting and stress relief on the rock mass, and changes with distance away from the bench face in a mine environment. The presented method to define D was based on 20 years of using calibrated discrete element numerical models to simulate the strain/induced degradation of the rock mass that occurs in a pit slope as a result of stress relief and relaxation in response to mining. Mr. Rose’s paper has recently been incorporated into a 2020 update of the Hoek-Brown strength criterion. Please visit our Publications page to see other papers prepared by Mr. Rose and others.

Mr. Rose continues to advise over many projects being run in the Vancouver office, in 2019 he has been particularly active in mining project across Nevada and Montana, in British Columbia and Mexico.