Quantifying underground excavation damage induced by mine seismicity

Mining-induced seismicity leads to visible damage to underground excavation well known as rockburst. This is recognized as a major concern in deep mining and remains a key rock engineering challenge. It has a significant effect on the safety, productivity and operating costs of mines. This paper aims to determine the damage level associated with seismic events in a probabilistic way. This was motivated by the inherent uncertainty involved in the mine-induced seismicity phenomenon for the quantification of the level of damage caused. To this end, a methodology based on the multinomial logistic regression is employed to classify objectively the damage scales (based on the amount of rock ejected during rockburst) with their corresponding probabilities. Historical records of rockburst compiled from Australian mines were employed for this purpose. Overall, the results showed some consistency with the field data. It is concluded that the results of this study could contribute to the advancement of seismic hazard assessment in mines as the proposed rockburst damage scale charts allow for a probabilistic interpretation of the estimated damage to excavation.