An understanding of the mechanistic and time-dependent behaviour of the large scale rock mass surrounding a mining excavation provides an important basis for the development of quantitative measures to assess the risk associated with proposed excavation sequences. The paper describes the implementation of a time-dependent slip weakening constitutive law in a random mesh model of failure in a quasi-brittle rock mass. It is shown that this formulation can lead to certain scale-dependent effects and may be extended to examine the global stability properties of interacting fractures. The model is used to simulate the mining of a parallel-sided panel and the results are compared to some actual observations of seismic activity near a deep level stope. Some conclusions are drawn concerning the potential utility of this model for the explicit simulation of seismic processes.
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