Research status and prospect of cavability in block caving mining

With the rapid development of China’s economy, the contradiction between the supply and demand of copper raw materials has become increasingly prominent. In order to solve this contradiction, an effective measure is to mine low-grade and large copper deposits. Among the many underground metal deposit mining methods, block caving mining is a large-scale, low-cost, and high-efficiency mining method. It is also one of the mining methods with high mining technology content and difficult to implement. A lot of research work on cavability should be carried out in the feasibility study stage. The literature review is carried out on the assessment of cavability and the prediction of caving size. It is concluded that the keys of cavability assessment are to reduce the subjectivity in the assessment process, consider the interaction between the influencing factors of cavability, and build a spatial distribution model of cavability. It is pointed out that the development trend of cavability is the construction of cavability assessment system, which are composed of the comprehensive evaluation, spatial distribution model of cavability, and prediction of caving size. And the framework and basic assessment process are put forward on the cavability assessment system. The research results have high reference value and guidance for the cavability assessment in the mine that intends to adopt block caving mining.