Wear mechanism and serious wear position of casing pipe in vertical backfill drill-hole

Vertical backfill drill-hole is usually a key project in an underground mine with backfill method and can be easily damaged by impact of backfill slurry. Observation of the damaged vertical backfill drill-holes in Jinchuan Nonferrous Metal Corporation (JNMC), Gansu Province, China, given by a digital drill-hole video camera, indicated that there usually exist serious wear zones in casing pipe in vertical backfill drill-hole (CVBH). It was suggested that serious wear position of CVBH should be located at an interface between air and solid-liquid mixture within CVBH. Backfill slurry falls freely and impacts the wall of CVBH near the interface with great momentum and energy coming from high speed free fall of backfill slurry. The depth of serious wear position of CVBH, i.e., free fall height of backfill slurry in CVBH, can be estimated by the height of vertical backfill drill-hole, the length of horizontal pipeline, the density of slurry and the hydraulic gradient of pipeline system. A case study indicated that the estimation equation of serious damage depth of CVBH was of enough accuracy and was helpful for daily maintenance and management of vertical backfill drill-hole.