Stone Quarries in Difficult Conditions: Considerations on Design and Static Safety Appraisal Limits

Many mountain side stone quarries in the Piedmont Alpine area exploit granitoid rocks with good mechanical characteristics but intersected by discontinuity sets. These, badly interacting with the steep rock faces, can cause exploitation and stability problems. The proposed paper, on the basis of the examination of a significant number of quarry planning cases, recalls, from the mining policy point of view, the practical difficulties connected to "in situ" data acquisition (survey and geomechanical testing) and to a suitable use of stability analysis techniques for the safe planning of quarry activities.