Characterization, Assessment of Bearing Capacity and Settlement Aspects of Un-

engineered Backfills of Varying Ages and Depths of Open Cast Coal Mines

Anupkumar Ekbote
Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-
826004, India
Lohitkumar Nainegali
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-
826004, India
Sekhar Chandra Dutta
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad-826004, India

Abstract
India is one of the rapidly growing country, fulfilment and overcoming land crisis for the
infrastructural development is one of the concerned issue. Contrarily 4.37 million hectares of
the total land area of the country is coal field; in which 0.36 million hectares of the land is
under mining, till date. The coal production is of high priority, as Indias 52 percent of
primary commercial energy consumption is through coal. Moreover, more than 80 percent of
coal production of India is through surface mining, leading to enormous open un-useful land.
This also yields about 500 million cum of overburden material which is generally dumped in
heaps in adjacent vicinity of the mine or backfilled in the pit itself. In the process, huge tract
of land, generally unusable for any important economic activity is created. Urbanization,
major land reclamation schemes and disposal of huge quantities of solid waste generated by
mining and industries, enforce for the fills to be of increasing significance. Many, coal mines
in India are located in thickly populated areas, enduring difficulty to find land for
rehabilitation or suitable space for townships or service building requirements for upcoming
projects. It has become imperative to find ways, so that the backfilled areas are put to such
major use. The core problem lies in the heterogeneity of the fill, its susceptibility for
differential and long term settlement, bearing capacity, etc which make it difficult to predict
the fill behaviour when backfilled in un-engineered way with heterogeneous material without
control. The study pertains the feasibility of habitation and other infrastructural development
on backfilled open cast coal mines focusing on the backfill characterization, bearing capacity;
with particular emphasis on the settlement characteristics of backfills of different ages and
depths and with and without backfill treatment for use as foundation medium.