Bulking and settlement of weakly-cemented and cemented coal mine spoil

Despite its importance to mine planning, very few coal mine operators routinely and accurately measure the net bulking of spoil from their mines. With increasing environmental restrictions and space constraints being imposed on mine sites, a better understanding of the net bulking of spoil is important, as it affects volume storage requirements both in-pit and, more importantly, out-of-pit. Laboratory compression tests have been undertaken on scalped (to a given maximum size to allow testing) spoil specimens to estimate the self-weight and collapse settlement of coal mine spoil. Degradation testing was carried out by exposing scalped soil to the weather and monitoring its degradation and settlement. The results of these tests were used as input into a predictive tool for estimating the net bulking of coal mine spoil. This paper focuses on the laboratory testing program of two spoil types, representing the range from uncemented to cemented coal mine spoil, and presents an estimate of their net bulking based on the predictive tool