Block Caving Mining Method

Block caving is a mining ore mining method in which deep hole or medium-deep hole drilling blasting technology is applied for caving at one time in a stage. The layout of ore blocks and extracting technology are generally similar to that of sublevel caving method with sill pillar and external force of drilling blasting is required for caving. The method belongs to one-step mining, which is characterized by caving at one time in the whole stage height without sublevels. This mining method is divided into two mining schemes: stage forced caving with compensation space and stage forced caving of continuous extracting, and includes two caving methods: horizontal deep hole caving and vertical deep hole caving.

The horizontal deep hole blasting is applied for caving in the stage forced caving with compensation space (Fig. 1). Horizontal compensation space suitable for caving range should be formed to excavate drilling raise and drilling chamber. With poor working conditions, drilling...