Abstract
This paper is concerned with the stability and design of spoil piles associated with strip coal mines. Reference is made to surface mining operations in Australia and to spoil pile failures in which a two-wedge failure mechanism has been inferred from careful observation and analysis. A numerical model for slope stability analysis based on the two-wedge failure mode is introduced. The model enables the estimation of the factor of safety associated with a spoil pile considering shear strength parameters for the main body of the spoil to be different from those of the moisture-softened material at its base. The influence of stabilisation measures on the factor of safety F may be studied without difficulty. The variation of F with independent variations in berm width and coal wedge length is presented for a typical problem. A number of stability charts are presented based on a range of values for the shear strength parameters of spoil and of the moisture-softened material forming the spoil base.
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