The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) is presenting a two day short course (December 4 and 5) on this subject with Dr Mark Diederichs, Professor, Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen’s University and Dr Connor Langford, Consultant, Rocscience Inc. Venue: The Holiday Inn, 1696 Regent Street, Sudbury, Ontario. Understanding uncertainty in geomaterials is a key issue in mining  projects. In addition to the inherent uncertainty due to natural variability of geomaterials, knowledge based uncertainty involving testing, transformation and modelling errors also plays a critical role in design.

In underground excavations such as mines, this uncertainty poses a significant challenge to obtain reliable support design or hazard prediction calculations, leading to a residual risk during construction. Despite this, present design methods have yet to adopt a logical basis for describing this uncertainty and assessing its impact on performance. This is particularly true for problems involving feedback between ground response and support capacity, such as bolting and lining systems.

While several approaches are available to incorporate uncertainty into design, most deal with it subjectively and qualitatively – examples of these methodologies will be discussed with consideration of their utility and limitations. Reliability methods on the other hand, incorporate the uncertainty in material properties and in situ stress conditions directly into the design process. This allows for an assessment of system performance and risk by determining the probability of failure for a given design option. Examples of quantitative reliability analysis will be worked through in an interactive manner to demonstrate the potential of this method.

This workshop provides an overview of sources of uncertainty in geotechnical projects as well as a series of simple reliability-based tools that can help deal with uncertainty in design. A number of project examples from both the geotechnical and mining fields will then be presented to show the usefulness of these tools. Participants will also have an opportunity to use geotechnical modelling software (courtesy of Rocscience) to analyse a case study as a group and assess the performance for a series of design options. Finally, a panel discussion will be held to discuss how risk sharing can better be incorporated into the design process and contracts.

To register and inquire about this short course, please contact Courtney Folz at [email protected] or 705.673.6568 x72.