Open Pit Slope Design

Services...l...Waste Dumps and Stockpiles...l...Mine Water Management....

Piteau Associates provides geotechnical engineering services to the mining industry worldwide, with particular expertise relating to the design of open pit slopes in a broad spectrum of geologic environments that extend from soft, low strength, saprolitized rock masses, to very strong, competent, high strength rock masses.  Piteau Associates have been involved with the design and operation of open pit mines of all sizes, ranging from small quarries to some of the largest mines in the world with existing or planned slopes that exceed 1000m in height.

Our team of rock mechanics and geotechnical specialists has considerable experience in slope design studies for the full range of project development stages, including:

• Conceptual / scoping
• Pre-feasibility
• Feasibility
• Detailed design
• Construction
• Operations
• Closure

We are recognized as being at the forefront of pit slope design practitioners and employ a wide variety of field investigation and analysis techniques, including:

• Geotechnical and photogrammetric mapping to define the structural characteristics of the rock mass
• Geotechnical drilling, logging and core orientation to characterize rock mass parameters
• Downhole and surface instrumentation for monitoring movement
• In-situ permeability testing and piezometer installations to delineate hydrogeological characteristics
• Geologic structural analyses
• Kinematic analyses to define potential failure modes
• Limit equilibrium stability analyses
• Numerical modelling to investigate rock mass deformation and stress conditions