Abstract

While a knowledge of soil strain is of overwhelming importance in designing underground excavations, it is insufficient in itself to guarantee stability, and by extension, worker safety. The ability to detect unpredictable and potentially dangerous events therefore requies monitoring variations in strain and deformation. This research project will evaluate pillar stability through soundings taken with the "instrumented cylinder", developed at the Université de Sherbooke to measure triaxial deformation.

The cylinder will be linked to a data acquisition system equipped with an alarm. This eliminates the need for human intervention during the data collection and interpretation stages, since the alarm will signal the occurrence of deformation exceeding the critical threshold. This new measurement technique provides mining companies with a reliable, permanent, and safe control tool.