Special edition of the SAIMM Journal
 featuring the Department of Mining Engineering’s
hard rock pillar research

The University of Pretoria’s Department of Mining Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology is proud to showcase the research of its rock engineering specialists in the May 2023 edition (Volume 123, No. 5) of the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM).

This issue is devoted to hard rock pillar research, and the articles are mainly contributed by researchers associated with the Department of Mining Engineering. Prof Francois Malan, the Department’s Function Head: Research, who is also a member of the journal’s editorial board, played a key role in coordinating the Department’s research contributions.

According to Prof Malan, the South African mining industry faces several engineering challenges, one of which is the development of local pillar strength equations and pillar design methodologies for hard rock mines. “This edition of the SAIMM Journal is a welcome addition to the available research literature on hard rock pillar strength, and we thank all the researchers who shared their knowledge by contributing papers to this issue.”

This issue is available as an open-source journal at https://issuu.com/saimm, and features the following papers:

• A study of backfill confinement to reinforce pillars in bord-and-pillar layouts (Divine Ile and Francois Malan)
• A study of the effect of pillar shape on pillar strength (Jannie Maritz and Francois Malan)
• Bord-and-pillar design for the UG2 Reef containing weak alteration layers (Paul Couto and Francois Malan)
• Calibration of the limit equilibrium pillar failure model using physical models (Ruan Els and Francois Malan)
• A study of UG2 pillar strength using a new pillar database (Thomas Oates and Francois Malan)

Prof Ronny Webber-Youngman, Head of the Department of Mining Engineering, congratulated these researchers on their exceptional research effort. “The devotion of this prestigious publication to South Africa’s rock mechanics expertise, particularly that of the Department of Mining Engineering, clearly illustrates the high regard in which the Department’s research capacity is held by the industry.”