THE ANALYSIS OF SEISMIC LOAD CHARACTRESITIC OBSERVED IN THE LOWER SILESIAN COPPER BASIN

Abstract

One of the major problems associated with the excavation of the copper deposits in underground mines in Poland is the relatively high level of seismic activity. Numerous high-energy tremors can negatively affect the stability of underground workings and can have a destructive impact on the infrastructure located at the surface as well. As predicted, the seismic activity increases along with the depth of mining operations. Therefore, to face these threats, a number of organizational and technical prevention methods have been applied in the mines. One of them is the assessment of the effect of additional dynamic loads on the structures behaviour with the use of numerical modelling. Recently there have been some possibilities of conducting dynamic analyses, i.e. using the finite element method that allows gathering information on the changes in stress conditions or deformation levels within the analysed object. Unfortunately, these kinds of calculations are usually performed after the occurrence of an unwanted event, so it is rather a post factum method. This is mainly due to the lack of information about the worst scenario of seismic wave distribution. At the same time, during the preliminary risk assessment, in most cases, only the maximum predicted value of seismic wave amplitudes is taken into consideration. Other dynamic parameters such as dominant frequency and duration of seismic wave are usually omitted.
 In this paper, the time-frequency characteristics of induced seismic waves observed within the Lower Silesian Copper Basin were analysed. Based on the high-energy seismic events database, dominant frequencies, amplitudes and tremor durations were determined. Then the correlation between each parameter, i.e. the energy of each tremor and their hypocentic distance from the seismic source and monitoring station were determined.