A Case Study Integrating Numerical Simulation and InSAR Monitoring to Analyze Bedding-Controlled Landslide in Nanfen Open-Pit Mine

Abstract

Bedding-controlled landslides are a common geological hazard for open-pit metal mines and occur on layered rock slopes. It can spread spatially over the final boundary of the dip slope and persist throughout the entire life cycle of the mine, substantially compromising the safety of mining operations. Identifying potential landslide areas and determining the landslide mechanism is crucial for the safety production and slope management of mines. This study proposes a combination of satellite radar interferometry measurement and numerical simulation to determine the landslide mechanism of the bedding-controlled slope in open-pit mines. First, the multidimensional small baseline subset (MSBAS) technique of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is used to capture deformation information in the vertical and east–west directions of the slope, locate large-scale and long-term movements, and preliminarily determine the trend of landslides. Then, a layered slope damage constitutive model is established, and a three-dimensional stability calculation of the layered slope is performed using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3 software based on the strength reduction method to study the development and evolution process of landslides. The effectiveness of the method is validated by a large-scale bedding-controlled slope failure in the Nanfen open-pit mine in Liaoning, China, revealing the failure mechanism of the slope under excavation conditions. The study shows that the eastern slope bedding-controlled landslide in the Nanfen open-pit mine is a multizone composite-mode landslide caused by excavation, which belongs to the shear–slip–tension deformation failure mechanism as a whole. This study provides a new method for analyzing the mechanism of layered rock slope landslides under mining activities in open-pit mines, which can be used to assess and predict similar landslides.