Obtaining the values of the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of coal is crucial to the design and analysis at a coal mine. The laboratory measurement of the UCS of coal is difficult and may be impossible because of the nature of coal and the sample preparation requirements of uniaxial compression tests, resulting in limited or no UCS test values at most coal sites. To overcome the challenge, a probabilistic characterization...

Mineral resources are estimated to establish potential orebody with acceptable quality (grade) and quantity (tonnage) to validate investment. Estimating mineral resources is associated with uncertainty from sampling, geological heterogeneity, shortage of knowledge and application of mathematical models at sampled and unsampled locations. The uncertainty causes overestimation or underestimation of mineral deposit quality and/or...

The strength of rock has significant influence on its performance, and is, therefore, a key input during modelling and analysis of mining and geotechnical engineering structures. The uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), which is a popular parameter to quantifying rock strength can be determined in the laboratory using suggested method by International Society of Rock Mechanics (ISRM). However, the laboratory determination of U...

The determination of Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) is an essential step in the analysis and design of mining structures at a particular site. The estimated design parameters are affected by the inherent variability of BTS, measurement errors arising from laboratory testing, and transformation uncertainty associated with the empirical model linking BTS to other rock properties when it is indirectly estimated. These uncertain...

Rock properties are important for design of surface and underground mines as well as civil engineering projects. Among important rock properties is the characteristic impedance of rock. Characteristic impedance plays a crucial role in solving problems of shock waves in mining engineering. The characteristics impedance of rock has been related with other rock properties in literature. However, the regression models between char...

Deformation modulus of rock mass (Em) is an important parameter for the analysis and design of mining engineering projects. However, field tests for measuring deformation modulus of rock mass are difficult, time-consuming, and capital intensive. This has led to the development of numerous empirical models for estimating rock mass deformation modulus, which are in different forms and scattered in the literature. The numerous mo...

Measuring the blast-induced ground vibration at blasting sites is very important, to plan and avoid adverse effects of blasting in terms of the peak particle velocity (PPV). However, the measurement of PPV often requires time, cost, and logistic commitment, which may not be economical for small-scale mining operations. This has prompted the development of numerous regression equations in the literature to estimate PPV from a r...

Empirical relationships for estimating Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) of rock from other rock properties are numerous in literature. This is because the laboratory procedure for determination of UCS from compression tests is cumbersome, time consuming, and often considered expensive, especially for small to medium-sized mining engineering projects. However, these empirical models are scattered in literature, making it dif...

Intact rock properties are important for mining and geotechnical engineering because they are important design parameters for tunnels, rock foundations, rock slopes, among others. Some of the properties are also used as input parameters in some rock mass classification systems. Therefore, as rock properties are site-specific, there is need to investigate rock properties at a site especially when such site is used for engineeri...

A probabilistic approach that is based on Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) was developed in this study to design and perform sensitivity analysis of rock slope. The probabilistic approach uses MCS to perform a series of single objective optimizations for design of rock slope and to perform sensitivity analysis of rock slope stability. The MCS-based approach was used to evaluate the failure probability of a rock slope system and to...