Stress-deformation monitoring and modelling of an underground marble quarry

Abstract

Geotechnical instruments have been installed in a marble quarry that are dedicated for the monitoring of the mechanical behavior of rooms and pillars during the successive stages of concurrent surface and underground excavations. To facilitate fast and easy monitoring of stress and relative displacement changes with time, a web-driven platform was created for the collection, processing and presentation of monitoring data on the computer or mobile phone screen on an everyday basis. Since the collected data are local in character they are combined with the full-field three-dimensional solution of a Distinct Element Model. This combination of ground behavior monitoring with 3D numerical modeling data is proposed for the application of the observational or “experimental” method for the proper design and monitoring of safe underground marble quarries.