Lessons from the pillar wrapping monitoring programme at New Afton

Pillar wrapping refers to a ground support system that uses rope or cable slings. It is commonly used to support the drawpoint pillars in the extraction level of block cave mines. An instrumentation study was conducted at New Afton mine to quantitatively assess the field performance of pillar wrapping used in the B3 extraction level. Instrumented cable slings were installed at two drawpoints to capture the behaviour of the support system through cave initiation and early stages of propagation. Key factors that influence the performance of cable slings during early stages of the caving process were determined through the analysis and interpretation of the field data. A series of practical recommendations have been provided for designing and implementing cable slings.