Abstract: Aiming at the instability of temporary ore wall system, a main problem of non-pillar continuous mining, this paper has applied cusp catastrophe theory to analyze the instability mechanism of ore wall structure on the basis of the study of stability mechanical model of temporary ore wall structure. The cusp catastrophe equation of ore wall buckling instability has been obtained, as well as the necessary and sufficient condition of ore wall unstable failure. On this basis, the calculation method and the effect factors for limit thickness of ore wall unstable failure have been deduced and three control measures taken to decrease the thickness and increase the stability of ore wall have also been proposed. Combined with an example of Fenghuangshan copper mine in Anhui, the theoretical calculating value of its ore wall thickness is supposed to be bigger than 5.061 m, while the suitable value in production is 5.5 m, which has verified the theoretical value in industry. The industrial results have shown that the application of the cusp catastrophe model in the stability analysis and structure design of ore wall system is both reasonable and feasible.

Key words: temporary ore wall, stability, cusp catastrophe model, thickness design