Surface and Underground Excavations

Book excerpt: This comprehensive text explores the technologies and developments in excavations for any type of surface or underground excavation. The first several chapters cover unit operations, including drilling, explosives and blasting, mucking, haulage, hoisting, and supports and reinforcement. The book then describes excavation techniques for various operations, such as tunneling, raising, sinking, drifting, stoping, quarrying and surface mining, underground mining, pillar blasting, and liquidation. It also examines the design, planning, and analysis of excavations as well as the construction of surface and subsurface excavations, such as caverns. Case studies focus on heavy underground blasting during pillar recoveries.