A reconsideration of preconditioning practices in rockburst prone ground conditions in South Africa

Abstract

Preconditioning techniques have been applied in rockburst prone mines around the world in order to redistribute the stress peak further into the solid region ahead of the mining face by eradicating the strain energy in the asperities of the mining-induced fractures. The intention of this paper is to review the application of preconditioning practice, specifically in South African hard rock mines and outline gap knowledge revolving around this study. The results of the study have shown that there are two types of preconditioning techniques (face perpendicular and parallel). However, only face perpendicular preconditioning practice has been documented to have been successfully implemented in both conventional (non-mechanised) and fully mechanised gold mines. In this paper, it is maintained that although this technique has been reported to have been successfully implemented in many cases, there are still unanswered questions concerning this technique, therefore it is argued that this practice cannot be made an international practice before this gap knowledge are well addressed.