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A numerical evaluation of continuous backfilling in cemented paste backfilled

stope through an application of wick drains

Article  in  International Journal of Mining Science and Technology · November 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmst.2015.09.004

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 International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmst

A numerical evaluation of continuous backfilling in cemented paste

backfilled stope through an application of wick drains
Li Li, Yang Pengyu ⇑
Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montreal H3C3A7, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cemented paste backfill (CPB) is gaining popularity in many underground mines worldwide. Sufficient
Received 6 November 2014 water is added into CPB to make a flowable material for pipe transportation. Barricades are built near
Received in revised form 21 January 2015 the drawpoints to prevent in-rush of the fill slurry. To avoid barricade failures resulting from excessive
Accepted 23 March 2015
backfill pressures, backfilling is typically performed with a plug pour followed by a final pour. The inter-
Available online 3 November 2015
val between the two pours should be shortened or removed to increase mining productivity and avoid
pipe clogging. Recently, Li proposed to apply wick drains in backfilled stopes to promote drainage and
Keywords:
consolidation. The preliminary simulations by considering an instantaneous filling indicated that the
Mines
Cemented paste backfill
drainage of CPB can be significantly accelerated by using wick drains. Barricade was not considered.
Backfilled stopes Here, some new numerical modellings are presented with more representative filling sequences, stope
Numerical analyses geometry, and different draining configurations. The results illustrate that the stope can be backfilled
Drainage continuously by using wick drains.
Wick drains Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.

1. Introduction
Underground mining involves creating voids (i.e. stopes) that
could endanger ground stability when the stope dimensions are
too large. This may impact the ore recovery and dilution rates,
cause ground subsidence, and lead to serious safety issues. On
the other hand, the mining practice produces a large amount of
mine wastes including waste rock and tailings. Usually, the former
is stacked in the form of waste rock piles while the latter is depos-
ited at tailing impoundments. In both cases, the mine wastes are
disposed on the ground surface and occupy a lot of land, and
may cause instability and acid mine drainage [1–3]. To date, sev-
eral methods have been developed to address these problems,
among which stope backfilling is considered as the optimal
method.
In general, mining backfill plays the role of ensuring stability of
regional ground and local stopes, increasing ore recovery rate and
minimizing ore dilution [4–11]. The surface disposal of mine
wastes can be disposed by backfilling, which is regarded as an
environmental friendly solution [1,2]. Mining backfill is typically
classified as rockfill, hydraulic backfill and cemented paste backfill
(CPB); each has some advantages and limitations [6].
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 514 3404711.
E-mail address: pengyu.yang@polymtl.ca (P. Yang).
In the past three decades, CPB has been developed and widely
adopted in many underground mines in Canada, Australia, China,
and elsewhere. Generally consisting of 70–85% (solid weight) of
full tailings, CPB has many operational and environmental benefits
[6,12]. However, sufficient amount of water is added into the back-
fill to make a flowable material for pipe transportation from sur-
face backfill plant to underground voids (Fig. 1, left picture).
Because of the flowability of backfill, barricades have to be built
near the drawpoints to prevent the in-rush of backfill (Fig. 1, right
picture).
Once placed in the stope, CPB’s particles tend to settle down
under self-weight, leading to establishment of excess pore-water
pressure (PWP) [13–18]. The process of the dissipation of the
excess PWP is a well-known phenomenon called self-weight con-
solidation or sedimentation [18–23]. Due to the development of
the excess PWP and to avoid excessive backfill loads exerted on
barricades, stope filling is typically divided into a plug pour and
a final pour in practice, separated by an interval of several days
[17,24,25]. For the sake of barricade stability, this interval is
necessary, even obligatory in some cases. Alternatively, the rising
rate (i.e. speed, influenced by the flow rate of backfill feeding and
stope geometries) of the backfilling should be low enough [16].
On the other hand, from an economic point of view, this interval
is undesirable because it slowdowns the production and occasions
pipe clogging. Consequently, one seeks a fast and continuous back-
filling by means of improved drainage and consolidation of backfill.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2015.09.004
2095-2686/Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
898 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904

Hook Wick Drift Drift

drain

Hook
Step 1 Step 2

Wick drain
Blasting
hole

Draw point Drift Draw point Drift

Drift Hook Wick Drift

drain

Step 3 Step 4

Backfill
Fig. 1. A stope being backfilled (left) with a barricade constructed near the

Wick drain
drawpoint (right).
Barricade

A number of works have been reported on improving the drai-

nage of barricade by using different porous materials [26–28], but
few works on improving the drainage of CPB. Until recently, Li pro-
posed to use wick drains in backfilled stopes to improve drainage
and consolidation [9,29]. The concept is straightforward. Without
wick drains, the drainage of backfill typically occurs vertically in
one dimension (upward and downward). Once wick drains are
used, the drainage of backfill can occur in both horizontal and ver-
tical directions, thereby improving the drainage of the backfill sig-
nificantly. This has been confirmed by some preliminary numerical
results obtained with GeoStudio 2007 [30]. However, the prelimi-
nary numerical models considered only one or two wick drains
vertically placed in the backfilled stope, considering one layer
instantaneous backfilling. The barricade was not taken into
account. In this work, the conceptual introduction of wick drain
in backfilled stope is briefly recalled. New numerical modelings
using GeoStudio 2007 are presented with more representative fill-
ing sequences, stope geometry, and different configurations of
draining system. It is aimed to investigate the possibility of contin-
uous filling of CPB using wick drains.
2. Conceptual application of wick drains in backfilled stopes
In civil engineering, wick drains (or prefabricated vertical
drains) are commonly used to promote the drainage and consolida-
tion of silty and clayey soils [31–37]. A wick drain is usually com-
posed of a Polypropylene core and geotextile fabric as shown in
Fig. 2. The Polypropylene core plays the role of draining channel
while the geotextile acts as the filter. Compared with the other ver-
tical drains such as sand or waste rock columns, the installation of
wick drains is more convenient in backfilled stopes. Fig. 3 shows
the conceptual application of a wick drain in a backfilled stope
[9,29].
Drift Drift
Fig. 3. Flowchart of conceptual application of a wick drain in a backfilled stope
[9,29].
3. Numerical modeling of continuous filling
3.1. Model configuration
Fig. 4 presents a schematic view of CPB backfilled stope with a
barricade located in an access drift near the drawpoint. Here, a
nearly impervious mechanical barricade is considered. As shown
in Fig. 4, H (m), Hplug (m) and Hfinal (m) represent the total height,
plug pour height and final pour height of CPB, respectively; B (m)
and L (m) are the stope width and length, respectively; Hd (m)
and Ld (m) are the height and width of drift and barricade, respec-
tively. The stope and drift geometries of the numerical modeling
are given in Table 1.
Table 2 lists some hydraulic and mechanical properties of CPB
and wick drains taken for the numerical modeling. A rising rate
of 0.1 m/h is taken for the backfilling operation. This corresponds
to a backfill flow rate of 30 m3/h when the base section of the stope
is 10 m
30 m. In practice, a rising rate of 0.2 –0.4 m/h has been
reported depending on the backfill flow rate and section area of
the stope [17]. The CPB is considered as a soft linear-elastic mate-
rial with saturated hydraulic conductivity (also termed as coeffi-
cient of permeability) of ksat = 1.0
107 m/s (i.e. 0.00864 m/day)
and a coefficient of volume change mv = 0.0002 kPa1. The varia-
tions of the hydraulic properties of CPB are plotted in Fig. 5. The
variations of volumetric water content and hydraulic conductivity
as a function of the suction are presented in Fig. 5a and b, respec-
tively. As self-weight consolidation develops, the hydraulic
conductivity decreases as the effective stress increases, as shown
in Fig. 5c.

Geotextile fabric
H final

Final pour
L
Barricade
B
H

Ld
Polypropylene core
H plug

Plug Hd

Fig. 2. A commercial wick drain made of geosynthetic material (samples provided

by AMERDRAINÒ). Fig. 4. A CPB backfilled stope and a barricade in an access drift [27].
 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904 899

Table 1 Further discussion on how to estimate the loads on barricades is

Stope and drift geometries (m).
Stope size Drift size
H
B
L Hd
Ld
30
10
30 5
5
Usually, the hydraulic conductivity of wick drains is much
higher than that of CPB, so the drainage of the backfill around a
wick drain is dominated by the drainage of the CPB [9,30]. The
main role of wick drains is to provide low pressure (close to nil)
channels to facilitate the drainage. In this case, it is assumed that
the wick drains have the same hydraulic and mechanical proper-
ties as those of the CPB. It should be noted that the unit weight
of wick drains is taken as 20 kN/m3 instead of weightless shown
in Li [9,29]. In addition, these properties are assumed to be con-
stant with the evolution of saturation and effective stresses. In
GeoStudio 2007, a wick drain is represented by a 5 cm-thick inter-
face element that corresponds to a typical wick drain 4 mm thick
and 100 mm wide [30].
3.2. Allowable barricade load
The drainage and consolidation of hydraulic backfill is com-
pleted almost instantaneously, resulting in water ponding on the
top of the backfill. Abundant water bleeding is commonly observed
at the downstream of the barricade. Arching effect should be con-
sidered in barricade load design [38,39].
In the case of CPB, the barricade design remains a topic of
debate in pressure consideration. Some ones argue that the pres-
sures on barricades would be very small because no or little water
bleeding is observed. In geotechnique engineering, it is well known
that the water bleeding is not a reliable indicator of the excess PWP
dissipation [18]. Recent in-situ experiments have revealed that the
arching effect can be absent shortly after placing CPB [17]. This
tends to indicate that the total overburden stresses should be used
in barricade load design. On the other hand, these experimental
results of excess PWP show also that the process of drainage and
consolidation can start very quickly. When the rising rate of CPB
is low, the barricade design based on overburden may lead to an
over-conservative barricade design.
not the scope of this paper. Hereafter, the allowable barricade load
Plug height Final pour height P is estimated based on the geostatic pressure of the plug, without
Hplug Hfinal considering the arching effect. For the configuration defined here,
9 21 the allowable barricade load P is given as follows (with a factor
of safety equals 1.0):
 
1
P ¼ cLD HD Hplug  HD
2
 
1
¼ 20 kN=m3
5 m
5 m
9 m 
5 m ¼ 3250 kN
2
This value will be used as a load threshold on the barricade for suc-
cessful continuous backfilling.
3.3. Numerical modeling of stress evolution with filling and draining of
CPB
The stress evolution in a CPB backfilled stope (filling and drain-
ing) with and without wick drains is analyzed with GeoStudio,
which is a commercial software based on the finite element
method. This software package includes several modules to
address various geotechnical problems. In this analysis, the
‘‘SIGMA/W” module is used with the ‘‘Coupled stress/PWP” option,
which means a direct coupled hydro-mechanical process.
Fig. 6 shows typical GeoStudio models of a backfilled stope with
5 drain holes on the barricade (Fig. 6a), and with 5 wick drains
installed within the backfill and through the barricade (Fig. 6b).
For both models, the vertical rock walls and barricades are fixed
horizontally but set free in the vertical direction. The displace-
ments of horizontal rock walls are prevented along both axes. Drai-
nage is allowed through the top of the backfill, drain holes and
wick drains, while the rock walls are modeled as impervious. To
simulate the filling operation with a rising rate of 0.1 m/h, the fill
is divided into 60 layers (i.e. 0.5 m per layer) and 5 h are allocated
to each layer for draining and consolidating before the placement
of the next layer on the top of current layer. This simulation proce-
dure is repeated until the fill reaches the planned height (30 m)
without interruption between the plug pour (at a height of 9 m)
and final pour (the remaining 21 m). In the following subsections,
the stress distributions obtained by numerical modeling without
and with wick drains are presented at each stage of fill pouring.

Table 2
Some typical hydraulic and mechanical properties of CPB and wick drains.

Material type Saturated hydraulic Coefficient of volume Young’s modulus E0 (kPa) Unit weight c (kN/m3) Poisson’s ratio l
conductivity ksat (107 m/s) change mv (kPa1)
Backfill 1.0 0.0002 5000 20 0.334
Wick drains 1.0 0.0002 5000 20 0.334

0.5 1×10-2 1
Hydraulic conductivity (m/day)

1×10-3
Water content (m3/m3)

0.4

1×10-4
k-modifier

0.3
1×10-5

0.2
1×10-6

0.1 1×10-7 0.1

1 10 100 1 10 100 1 10 100
Matric suction (kPa) Matric suction (kPa) Effective stress (kPa)
(a) Volumetric water content function (b) Hydraulic conductivity function (c) hydraulic conductivity reduction modifier

Fig. 5. Hydraulic properties of the CPB[9].

900 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904

30 30

28 28
(a) (b)
26 26

24 24

22 22

20 20

18 18

16 16

14 14
y (m)

Wick

y (m)
12 12
drains
10 10
Drain
8 holes 8

6 6

4 4

2 2

0 0

-2 -2

-4 -4

-6 -6
-5 0 5 10 -5 0 5 10
x (m) x (m)

Fig. 6. GeoStudio models of a backfilled stope: (a) with no wick drains but 5 drain holes through the barricade; (b) with 5 wick drains within the backfill and through the
barricade.

3.3.1. Stress distributions at the stage of the plug pour
The distribution of excess PWP immediately after placing the
last layer of the plug pouring is illustrated in Fig. 7. In the absence
of wick drains (Fig. 7a), excess PWP could partly dissipate at the
end of the plug pouring due to drainage and consolidation upward
to the backfill surface and downward through the 5 drain holes
during the 90 hours’ filling. An excess PWP between 20 and
50 kPa is still observed near the barricade, which indicates that
the drainage and consolidation are in progress. With the use of 5
wick drains, the excess PWP on the barricade is close to nil, which
means that the drainage and consolidation are almost complete
(Fig. 7b).
The distribution of horizontal total stress immediately after
placing the last layer of the plug pouring is shown in Fig. 8. It is
observed that the horizontal total stresses along the barricade
are largely reduced (by around 50% at the mid-height) after using
5 wick drains. The distributions of horizontal total stresses along
the barricade are further detailed in Fig. 9. Nonlinear distributions
are observed along the barricade height in both cases. Also, one
notices that the horizontal total stresses are much smaller than
the geostatic overburden pressures of the plug pour.
3.3.2. Stress distributions at the stage of the final pour
Fig. 10 shows the excess PWP distribution immediately after
placing the last layer of the final pour for the case of 5 drain holes
(Fig. 10a) and 5 wick drains (Fig. 10b). Again, one observes the dis-
sipation of a large portion of the excess PWP near the barricade
even in the absence of wick drains (Fig. 10a), resulting in a
remaining value close to 120 kPa. As indicated in Fig. 10b, after
introducing 5 wick drains, the drainage and consolidation are
almost complete and excess PWP is close to zero near the
barricade.
Fig. 11 shows the horizontal total stress distribution immedi-
ately after placing the last layer of the final pour. In the case of

6 6
(a) (b)
4 20 4
40
2 2
60 5 5
5
y (m)
y (m)

0 15
0
80 25
40

100
-2 -2
5
60

120
5
-4 -4
140 5

-6 -6
-5 0 5 10 -5 0 5 10
x (m) x (m)

Fig. 7. Numerical results of the excess PWP (kPa) distribution shortly after placing the last layer of the plug pouring: (a) with no wick drains but 5 drain holes through the
barricade; (b) with 5 wick drains within the backfill and through the barricade.
 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904 901

6 6
(a) (b)
4 4
20
40 20
2 2
60
40

y (m)
y (m)
0 0
80 60 20

40
-2 -2
100
120
-4 140 -4 60
80

-6 -6
-5 0 5 10 -5 0 5 10
x (m) x (m)

Fig. 8. Numerical results of the horizontal total stress (kPa) distribution shortly after placing the last layer of the plug pour backfill: (a) without wick drains; (b) with 5 wick
drains within the backfill and through the barricade.

Horizontal total stress Fig. 12 shows the distribution of horizontal total stress along
(kPa) the barricade after placing the last layer of the final pour. Again,
0 30 60 90 120 150 180
it is noted that the horizontal total stress distributions for both
cases are nonlinear along the barricade. In the absence of wick
ov

-1
drains, the horizontal total stresses are quite larger than the geo-
erb

Ge n pr
Wi

ur
Wi

static overburden pressures (see Fig. 9) of the plug, on which the

os ess
de
tho
th

tat

-2
ut
5

ic re

maximum allowable load on the barricade is based. This implies

y (m)

wi

wi
ck

u
ck

-3 that the continuous filling of the entire stope is not possible. In

dra

dra
ins

the case with 5 wick drains, Fig. 12 illustrates that the horizontal
ins

-4
total stresses close to the top and base of the barricade are lower
-5 than the plug’s geostatic pressures (80 and 180 kPa, respectively,
see Fig. 9). However, the plug’s geostatic pressures near the mid-
Fig. 9. Distributions of the horizontal total stresses along the barricade shortly after height of the barricade are exceeded. Therefore, the loads exerted
placing the last layer of the plug pouring obtained by numerical modeling and
on the barricade should be compared with the design load P to
based on the geostatic overburden pressure.
see whether the barricade failure would occur in such condition.

3.4. Stability analysis of the barricade

no wick drains, Fig. 11a shows that the horizontal total stress can
reach up to 360 kPa near the barricade, while it ranges between As shown in Figs. 9 and 12, drainage and consolidation during
120 and 180 kPa after using wick drains (Fig. 11b). the filling operation have taken place, resulting in arching effect

40
24 24

22 80 (a) 5 (b)
22 5
5
120 15 5
15

20 20

18 160 18

16 200 16

14 14
y (m)

12 12
280
y (m)

10 10

8 8
35
45
15

6 360 6

4 4

400
2 2

0 0
440
5
160

-2 -2
480 5
24
36

5
0
0

-4 -4

-6 -6
-5 0 5 10 -5 0 5 10
x (m) x (m)

Fig. 10. Numerical results of the excess PWP (kPa) distribution after placing the last layer of the final pouring: (a) with no wick drains but 5 drain holes through the barricade;
(b) with 5 wick drains within the backfill and through the barricade.
902 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904

24 24
40
20
22 22
(a) (b)
80
20 20
120 60
18 18

16 16 100
200
14 14

12 12 140

y (m)
y (m)

280
10 10

8 8 180

6 360 6

220
4 400 4

2
2 440 260

42
0 0

0
440 280 100

0
22

180
-2 -2
36
40

320

26
-4
0

-4 520

0
140
-6 -6
-5 0 5 10 -5 0 5 10
x (m) x (m)

Fig. 11. Numerical results of the horizontal total stress (kPa) distribution shortly after placing the last layer of the final pouring: (a) with no wick drains but 5 drain holes
through the barricade; (b) with 5 wick drains within the backfill and through the barricade.

Horizontal total stress

Final
0 wick drain; 0 drain hole

pour
(kPa)
0 10 0 20 0 30 0 40 0 50 0 600 14000 0 wick drain; 5 drain hole
1 wick drain; 5 drain hole
12000
Loads on barricade (kN)

5 wick drain; 0 drain hole

overb

-1 10000 Designed barricade load

With
With

urden
Geos
out w

8000
-2
5 wic

tatic
y (m)

press
ick d

6000
Plug
pour
k dra

-3
ure
rains

4000
ins

-4 2000
0
-5 5 10 15 20 25 30
Fill height (m)
Fig. 12. Distribution of the horizontal total stress along the barricade shortly after
placing the last layer of the final pour obtained by numerical modeling and based on Fig. 13. Comparison between the barricade design load and variation of the
geostatic overburden pressure. barricade loads during filling for several scenarios of draining system, obtained by
numerical modeling.

and non-linear stress distribution along the height of the barricade.
The backfill loads exercised on the barricade can be obtained by
integrating the horizontal total stresses over the barricade area.
Fig. 13 illustrates the backfill loads exercised on the barricade
obtained numerically for several scenarios of draining system: no
draining system (0 drain hole, 0 wick drain; details not shown), 5
drain holes through the barricade but no wick drain, 5 drain holes
combined with 1 wick drain (details not shown), and 5 wick drains.
The allowable barricade load P (3250 kN, obtained by the plug’s
geostatic pressure) is also plotted for the sake of comparison.
The results shown in Fig. 13 indicate that a filling interval is
obligated once the plug pour is complete at a filling height of
9 m if there is no draining system installed in the barricade. With
5 drain holes passing through the barricade but no wick drain, it
is observed that the barricade design load is exceeded when the
filling height reaches around 15 m. To ensure the barricade stabil-
ity, the filling then has to be halted to allow the dissipation of
excess PWP. With the combination of one wick drain and 5 drain
holes in the barricade, Fig. 13 indicates that the filling has to be
paused at a height of 22 m. When 5 wick drains are introduced,
the applied loads are always below the barricade design load dur-
ing the entire filling, indicating a possible continuous filling.
4. Discussion
The hydraulic conductivity of hydraulic backfill is several orders
of magnitude larger than that of CPB, which contains a large
amount of fine particles (<20 lm). The excess PWP in a hydraulic
backfill dissipates quite quickly, leading to the bleeding of a lot
of free water from barricades and at the top of the backfill. The
drainage of bleeding water is mostly dominated by the draining
capacity of the barricades. Therefore, the application of wick drains
is proposed specifically for CPB having limited permeability.
Wick drain is only one type of vertical drains widely used in
foundation engineering. Sand columns are the other type of verti-
cal drains commonly used in civil engineering to accelerate the
drainage and consolidation of soft soils [31]. In mining engineering,
waste rocks have been introduced into tailing impoundments to
 L. Li, P. Yang / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 897–904
accelerate the drainage and reduce the potential of liquefaction
[40–42]. In underground stopes, the access to mined stopes is dan-
gerous and limited. The construction of sand or waste rock col-
umns would be difficult, if not impossible. Alternatively, drain
tubes [43] can also be used in backfilled stopes to accelerate the
drainage and consolidation of CPB.
The numerical simulations show that continuous filling of a
30 m high stope at a rising rate of 0.1 m/h without interruption
between the plug and final pour is possible by using wick drains.
However, it should be noted that the results presented here are
not associated with any practical application. The geometries and
material properties are based on typical values from literatures
[14–16] and the GeoStudio Manual [30]. Moreover, the numerical
modelings are simplified in several aspects. For instance, the
hydraulic properties of backfill in the drift are assumed to be the
same as those in the stope. Due to the limited drift width (Ld),
the 2D (strain plane) modeling tends to overestimate the dissipa-
tion of excess PWP, and therefore underestimate the horizontal
total stress and loads exerted on the barricade by the backfill. This
may place the design on the non-conservative side. Besides, it
should be mentioned that a factor of safety equal to 1.0 has been
used in previous analyses. In practice, a factor of safety between
1.5 and 2 (or higher) should be applied, depending on the uncer-
tainty of the parameters used in barricade design and the conse-
quences of the barricade failure.
In addition, some more aspects should be considered when
applying wick drains in practical projects. For example, the effec-
tive openings of geotextile fabric of wick drains should be selected
by considering the granularity of the backfill to avoid the internal
erosion and clogging. Also, the geotextile fabric should be strong
enough to resist failures such as stretching and tearing. These
aspects are beyond the scope of the paper, but should be taken into
account when designing wick drains for backfilled stopes.
5. Conclusions
Numerical simulations have been performed with multi-layer
filling, more representative stope geometry, and different draining
configurations. It is shown that drainage and consolidation can
take place during filling, depending on the hydraulic properties
and rising rate of backfill. This has been confirmed by numerical
results and in-situ measurements reported in the literatures. Thus,
the complete ignorance of the arching effect in a stope with CPB
may result in an over-conservative barricade design. An optimal
barricade design should allow for the backfill rising rate, hydraulic
properties of the backfill, and barricade geometry and position in
the access drift.
The numerical results also show that a stope can be filled con-
tinuously without interruption between the plug pour and final
pour, owing to the application of wick drains. These results indi-
cate that the application of wick drains in mine backfilled stopes
is promising for accelerating the drainage and consolidations of
backfill. Nevertheless, due to several limitations involved in the
numerical modelings, this work should be considered as concep-
tual and the numerical results shown here should not directly be
applied to any practical project. More work is required to refine
the numerical modelings and analyses.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN),
the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du
travail (IRSST) and the industrial partners of the Research Institute
on Mines and the Environment (RIME UQAT-Polytechnique).
903
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