A Critical Review of Stability Analysis and Design of Pit Slopes in Indian Opencast Coal Mines

Abstract

The design of the optimum pit slope is one of the major challenges in Indian opencast coal mines. The aim of open cast mines should be to attain steepest possible slope angle without compromising safety in order to maximize profits. The important factors like geology, groundwater and slope angle play a critical role in the stability and behaviour of pit slopes in Indian opencast coal mines. Although mining engineers have long recognized the importance of these factors, it remains a significant challenge to integrate stability analysis and design of pit slopes into opencast mining operations during the entire life cycle of the project. This paper emphasizes the importance of these factors to slope stability assessments, reviewing how they control slope failure mechanisms, how mining engineers measure and include them in slope stability analyses, and how numerical simulations of slopes incorporate these parameters.