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By Dakota Faulkner

Unexpected roof falls often occur in the entries or intersections of active mining sections in underground mines. For large roof falls (greater than 20 ft in height), it becomes dangerous and impractical to clean up the rock debris and re-bolt the newly exposed roof strata. To help mine operators rehabilitate the roof fall areas in a quick, safe, and economic manner, Jennmar Corporation and Keystone Mining Services, LLC (KMS) designed, tested, and developed various impact-resistant (IR) steel set designs, as initially detailed in the proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Ground Control in Mining (ICGCM). Since then, the IR steel sets have been successfully installed in more than 100 roof falls in 43 different coal mines. Significant data has been obtained from these installations, enabling further refinement to and improvement on the design. This paper (1) updates drop test results of the IR lagging panel, (2) presents a case study of the performance of IR arch sets installed 56 months ago at a roof fall rehabilitation site, (3) demonstrates capacity evaluation of the IR steel set, and (4) outlines a preliminary applicability evaluation guideline of the IR steel set for a given roof fall condition. Field evaluation and structural numerical analysis indicate that impact capacity of the system is significantly higher than that of the IR lagging panel, as originally determined. It is concluded that, when evaluating the applicability of an IR steel set, ground control engineers should consider the IR lagging and steel set as an entire system and make a reasonable engineering decision based on actual roof fall geotechnical conditions.

Jan 1, 2014

By Axel Studeny

Geomechanical-numerical methods are an established tool for planning of underground excavations worldwide. By describing the interaction between heterogeneous layered strata and support elements it is possible to determine their suitability. The German hard coal mining industry has more than twenty years experience in investigation and using these parameters to carry out numerical calculations. Today, nearly all excavations (shafts, pit bottoms areas, bunkers, coal faces, development drivages, gate roads etc.) are calculated by geomechanical-numerical tools in combination with empirical planning methods. A high accuracy of planning results, which is a special requirement in the German coal industry with its deep-level longwalls, bedded and weak surrounding strata and multiple seam mining layouts, depends on the extensive calibration of the numerical models, which is achieved by: 1) Taking a large number of underground measurements with empirical evaluation. 2) Carrying out physical modeling. 3) Using the characteristic features of the installed support elements. This paper compares the planning approach used for multiple and single seam mining and presents the advantages of this planning tool. The main focus is on the feasibility of rockbolting as the sole means of roadway support for multiple seam mining operations, though the paper will also look at how the costs can be improved by using a low bolting density in single seam layouts.

Jan 1, 2007

By Francis Kendorski

The mining engineering design professional has limited practical and reliable tools for planning successful room-and-pillar stone mines using readily-available and collectible information. Three techniques are in common use today: the hard rock CANMET method of Hedley and Grant, the hard rock method of Stacey and Page, and the oil shale method of Hardy and Agapito. Other methods have been proposed, such as the USBM method of Obert and Duvall, the CSIR/Penn State method of Bieniawski, and the soft rock confined core method of Abel, Wilson, and Ashwin. However, the latter have practical shortcomings when applied to room-and-pillar stone mines such as developed for construction aggregate production. Ideally, the use of multiple techniques resulting in the same acceptable and reliable answer is the goal. Recently, in several underground stone mines areas of undersized pillars were examined. These undersized pillars apparently resulted from non-adherence to a mine plan. These undersized pillars now exhibit strong evidence of incipient failure such as slabbing, opening of through-going fractures, and hour-glassing. This situation allows examination of pillar designs at a ?safety factor? of essentially one. This rare opportunity allowed the examination of the suitability and adjustment of the first three design methods discussed, resulting in greater overall confidence in the methodologies.

Jan 1, 2007

By James J. Scott

Research and development has been carried out on the patented Dynamic Rock Anchor, tradenamed DYNA-ROK and DYNA-ROK PLUS Anchors, which are manufactured and marketed by Ingersoll-Rand Company. This paper will present the results of field testing of this revolutionary new concept in ground control. Geologic conditions will be described where the plastic sleeve of the DYWA-ROK anchor alone is sufficient to provide anchorage and also, where in softer ground conditions, the DYWA-ROK PLUS is applied. The rationale for making the decision as to the type of fixture to be employed, the length of plastic tube to be used and the quantity of resin are explained. Pull test data will be shown from eight different coal seams in the Eastern United States where the product has been installed.

Jan 1, 1990

By Gennaro G. Marino

As part of the development of a shopping center in West Virginia, a significant bench had to be cut into a mountainside that was over 700 ft. high. As a result, a steeply stepped, over 400-ft.- high wall was created. The high wall exposed old abandoned room-and-pillar coal workings at the toe of the cut. Because of exposure to the elements, the mine openings began to severely deteriorate with significant potential of undermining of the rock cut face and causing a large rock fall(s). Exacerbating this wall problem was a set of fairly planar sub-parallel and sub-vertical joints creating, in essence, thin rock slabs. Also present were stress relief fractures that were observed in the exposed pillars. Given the proximity of the project building to this high rock face, mitigation of the rock fall potential was deemed necessary. In order to prevent continued damage and deterioration of these exposed mine entries, the rubblized openings were filled with bulkhead grout and pressure injected with grout. The total amount of grout installed in these openings was about 3,945 CY. Also, a rock drape was attached to the entire face to mitigate small rock falls from natural causes. There also existed another level of mining below the ground surface and under an existing building at a depth of about 160 ft. Under a portion of the building, the pillars in these old works were second mined, and the building seemed to have been already affected by limited subsidence above this area. Also, calculated pillar safety factors in this high extraction section of the mine were too low. Consequently, these old works were stabilized by saturation grouting. An indication of overall roof distress was the significant fracturing encountered in the bedrock overburden during the drilling of the injection holes and the volume of grout placed in these holes. The total grout installed in the high extraction section of the lower mine was about 6,660 CY. This paper describes the investigation and the grouting techniques employed at the rock cut face and under the existing building to mitigate continued damage to avoid future subsidence problems at the face and the building premises.

Jan 1, 2013

By Samrat Mohanty

The construction of underground hydrocarbon storage caverns in Jurong Island, Singapore, is nearing completion. The facility, located beneath the seabed of Banyan Basin, is comprised of five storage caverns with a storage capacity of approximately 1.5 million cubic meters. The galleries of each cavern are 20 m wide by 27 m high and approximately 340 m long. In addition to the storage caverns, various access and operations tunnels are required to support the facility. Among these are water curtain galleries to ensure that hydrostatic pressures in excess of hydrocarbon storage pressure are maintained in the rock mass surrounding the storage caverns. Early in the design process, conventional steel rock bolts with resin polymer grout were considered for ground control. However, the construction contractor proposed using fibe-reinforced polymer (FRP) bolts with cement grout due to the corrosive hydrologic environment, weight and handling considerations, local construction preferences, and the requirement to have a cavern design life of 50 years. FRP bolts with cement grout were ultimately chosen for the project. The FRP bolting system has proven to be very successful, with no ground failures experienced where systematic FRP bolting has been applied. This paper discusses the properties of FRP bolt/cement grout bolting systems, their characteristics in relation to steel bolt/resin bolting systems, and numerical modeling results assessing their performance.

Jan 1, 2014

By Gautam Benerjee, Veera Reddy Boothukuri, Bhattacharjee Ram Madhav, Panigrahi Durga Charan

"India’s tryst with mechanized longwall coal mining started with the introduction of the first self-advancing powered support longwall (PSLW) face at Moonidih Colliery of Jharia Coalfield in 1978 and at Godavarikhani (GDK)7 Incline of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) in 1983. During the last 37 years, about 30 longwall units in Coal India, Ltd., (CIL) and 10 longwall units in SCCL have been introduced with powered roof supports of varying capacity, ranging from 280 to 800 tonnes, in many mines in India under varying geological and geotechnical conditions. The majority of the longwall faces in India have been worked under relatively shallow cover (up to 200m), and significant strata control problems have been encountered due to poor caveability of the roof, inadequate capacity of the supports, a lack of knowledge on longwall caving mechanisms, less than adequate strata monitoring systems, and the non-availability of quality spare parts, etc. This has resulted in structural damage to supports and increased downtime of the equipment, thereby making longwall mining in India a case of technology failure. Energy demand for a developing country like India with a population of 1.2 billion is huge, and the thrust on increasing coal production continues. However, the share of coal production from underground mines in India continues to decline (current share is around 6%) because of absence of successful mass production technology in underground coal mining. Under this backdrop, a high-capacity longwall with state-of-the-art technology was introduced in 2014 at Adriyala Longwall Project (ALP) of SCCL for the first time in Indian Coal Mining Industry. The first longwall panel (LWP) has been completed successfully. This paper highlights the major geotechnical challenges encountered during development of the longwall gate roads due to the presence of two overlying clay bands, significant in-situ horizontal stresses and the experience of using rigid (welded) steel wire mesh with resin-anchored roof bolts. Efforts have been made to analyze longwall weighting and caving behavior, such as main and periodic weightings, the effect of front and side abutment pressures, and the behavior of gate roadway support systems under immediate friable weak roof with overlying massive sandstone."

Jan 1, 2017

By Marc Arl

Failures of the face and roof above longwall shields have caused days and sometimes weeks of lost production. A common recovery method for these failures has been to pump light weight cementitious grout into the roof and face cavity to stabilize the area This approach while effective is very time consuming and costly. Mines in several coal producing nations have over the past few years been applying phenolic foam grouts in these situations in lieu of cementitious materials. Phenolic foam is a two-component injection product intended for cavity filling, air and gas sealing and the consolidation of highly fractured strata. The properties of phenolic foam; rapid application, quick setting, high expansion rate, high compressive strength and excellent anti-static properties, produce a fast, safe and cost effective cavity filing solution. The product is also classified as fire resistant and so is also suitable for sealing off underground heatings and for aiding fire fighting operations in deep mines. This paper will discuss the application and use of phenolic foam in various underground coal mines in the world over the past few years.

Jan 1, 2005

By Peter Fischer, Heinz-Jiirgen Kateloe, Anton Sroka, Axel Preusse

"Since mining in Germany has a long history, there are still many locations where the surface fracture problem has to be solved. Shallow mine workings from an earlier era can affect the surface in a discontinuous way. In many cases, due to light overburden load, those mine rooms did not collapse and a downfall can suddenly happen for many reasons, e.g., in connection with a changed load entry into the subsurface or by additional influence of water. This results in ground movements, which in extreme cases, appear as surface fractures.Depending on the use of the surface, ground movements caused in such a way constitute an endangerment by law. Particularly, within the southern Ruhr district, surface fracture and subsidence endangered ranges are determined on the basis of an empirical method that resulted from a systematic evaluation of surface fractures and rock disclosures. This method indicates maximum ranges within which impacts from abandoned shallow mine workings must be assumed.With a special emphasis on a risk management approach, RWTH Aachen University adapted the model of stochastic media to the conditions of abandoned shallow mining to compute and illustrate potential ground movements due to the collapse of shallow mine workings. Further investigations were concerned with the analysis of characteristic parameters which can serve for the assessment of the surface fracture probability in a comparative view of different cases. In recent years, more than 50 surface fractures in the southern Ruhr district were analyzed in order to develop a risk assessment of surface fracture endangered ranges over shallow mine workings. The results that have been obtained so far are described in this paper.INTRODUCTIONAbandoned underground mine workings of shallow depth can pose a threat to the surface. Due to small overburden rock loads, shallow excavations often remain intact for decades after the operations have ceased and may collapse abruptly (Braemer et al., 2005; Hollmann and Nuerenberg, 1972; Preusse et al., 2007). Several approaches for prognosis of surface fracture resulting from 97 subsurface collapse deal with this topic (Loebel and Sroka, 2001; Tajdus and Sroka, 2009)."

Jan 1, 2010

By André C. Zingano

The coal pillars in room-and-pillar mining method are subjected to vertical stress due to overburden rock mass and horizontal stress relieve due to entries excavation around them. Some coal mining companies are applying rock bolts and steel straps to improve the pillar strength, consequently to reducing the pillar size and increasing coal recovery. This kind of approach deserves some discussion, whether it is pillar reinforcement or just rib support. The efficiency of pillar reinforcement (or rib support) is directly related to the initial load capacity of coal pillar, the type of excavation, and the width to high ratio of the pillar. The objective of this paper is to understand the mechanism of pillar reinforcement (or rib support) using rock bolts and steel straps on pillar ribs. Numerical simulation taking into account the relations listed above. The results showed that the increase of coal pillar strength is very short, and there is no influence on improvement of load capacity of pillar. However, the rib support avoids block falling, rib failure, and displacement, reducing the pillar failure propagation into the pillar center. Keywords: coal, pillar reinforcement, room and pillar.

Jan 1, 2006

By Baogui Yang, Jie Yang, Anthony Iannacchione

"The cemented coal gangue-fly ash backfill technique (CGFB) has commonly been used to control subsidence damage caused by underground coal mining. This paper discusses the CGFB backfilling process used at the Xin-Yang coal mine, Shanxi Province, China. A general description of the components of the CGFB are provided. The reaction of the strata to the backfilling process is simulated with a scaled physical model based on the Xin-Yang conditions and verified with subsidence points on the surface. With the help of the cemented filling materials, the CGFB produces only a slight bend to the overburden roof strata over the longwall panel. Physical models were constructed at the China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, to simulate actual conditions. The modeling results show minor fracture distribution in the overlying strata and lower abutment pressure development within the backfilling area. The effectiveness of the CGFB technique is verified by a reduction in the vertical surface subsidence measured above the backfilled area.INTRODUCTIONUnderground longwall mining is the most efficient underground means to recover coal resources and is used widely in China, the US, Australia, and Europe. However, this type of mining has introduced some serious environmental impacts. Perhaps the most significant environmental issues are the surface and groundwater impacts associated with the formation of the subsidence basin (Bell and Donnelly, 2006). Backfill technology has been used for years to mitigate subsidence impact. Simply speaking, the backfilling technique places filling materials into the void left from the extraction of coal. When this material is placed within the gob, it is capable of partially supporting the overburden until a new equilibrium is reached. Essentially, the backfill material inhibits crack development and expansion caused by the strata movement and mitigates damaging ground deformations.The cemented gangue-fly ash backfill (CGFB) is one type of novel backfill technology, consisting of cement, coal gangue, fly ash, water, and additives in varying concentrations. The CGFB is mixed on the surface, pumped underground through a pipeline as a slurry, and placed in the void behind the longwall shield under the protection of specially designed hydraulic supports."

Jan 1, 2018

By David Oyler

Sonic travel time logging of exploration boreholes is routinely used in Australia to obtain estimates of coal mine roof rock strength. Because sonic velocity logs are relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain during exploration, the technique has provided Australian underground coal mines with an abundance of strength data for use in all aspects of ground control design. However, the technique depends upon reliable correlations between the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and the sonic velocity. This paper describes research recently conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) aimed at developing a correlation for use by the U.S. mining industry. At three coreholes in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and southern West Virginia, sonic velocity logs were compared with point load tests for a broad range of coal measure rock types. For the entire data set, the relationship between UCS and sonic travel time is expressed by the following equation, where UCS is in psi and t is the travel time of the P-wave in microsec/ft. UCS = 468,000 x e-0.054t (1) The r-squared value for this equation is 0.87, indicating that a strong correlation between sonic travel time and UCS can be achieved with this technique. The paper also addresses the steps that are necessary to ensure that high-quality sonic logs are obtained for use in estimating UCS.

Jan 1, 2008

By Jonathan Duncan, Tim Burgess, William Kendall, Jens Lange

"Steel wire mesh is the accepted standard for roof and rib skin control at most coal mines in the United States. Wire mesh is delivered to the mine in bundles that are heavy and awkward to handle. The large size, stiffness, and weight of the wire mesh can present a safety hazard in transporting underground and storing on the roof bolter. Installing wire mesh on the roof and ribs with the roof bolter can be a challenge as well.Synthetic mesh is lighter than wire mesh and can be folded and rolled into a safe, manageable size. A single synthetic mesh roll large enough to cover the roof and ribs in a deep cut can be safely handled by two men. The roof bolter is designed to carry and dispense the roll as it advances and installs primary roof support, resulting in a single pass roof and rib ground control solution. This paper focuses on the design and implementation of the roof bolter synthetic mesh handling system developed by J. H. Fletcher & Co., Huesker, Inc., and Oxbow Mining.INTRODUCTIONRoof and rib skin control in some coal mines has been an issue since mining first began. Roof and rib skin problems vary from mine to mine. The type of roof rock material exposed after mining; the mine atmosphere; and stresses from depth of cover, over mining, and/or undermining are some of the variables that can contribute to roof skin problems from mine to mine.Potential roof and rib skin problems can be time dependent as well. Some mines have roof skin rock, sometimes called draw rock, that falls when drilling the hole for the roof bolt as the initial roof support is installed. Some roof skins are more stable but can fail over time. The failure of roof skin can even be between properly installed roof bolts with roof plates (Figure 1).Mines have most commonly used a wire mesh that comes in individual panels anywhere from 5 ft x 5 ft (1.5 m x 1.5 m) all the way up to 5 ft x 16 ft (1.5 m x 4.9 m) in size. They are typically constructed of 8- or 9-gauge wire welded on a 4 in (102 mm) square pattern. A 5 ft x 16 ft (1.5 m x 4.9 m) panel weighs approximately 35 lbs (16 kg). These steel wire mesh panels can make it a difficult and sometimes dangerous task to deliver them from the surface to the roof bolter and then store on the machine. Manipulating the mesh panels from the storage area on the machine to the final installation position on the roof or rib can also be a daunting task (Figure 2)."

Jan 1, 2010

By Nan Zhou, Jixiong Zhang, Qiang Zhang

"Mining activities under hard roof could easily induce rock burst. Based on the geological conditions of widespread hard roof in China, this paper discusses the type, mechanism of occurrence and prevention of rock burst caused by hard roof from energy evolution point of view. It analyzed the interaction between the solid backfilled body and roof under different backfilling ratios. And by establishing and applying the mechanical model, the deformation of hard roof and energy evolution of the panel under different backfilling ratios were determined, revealing the control effect of solid backfilling on disaster-causing energy. As a result, an innovative method using the solid backfilling method was proposed as a solution to the hard-roof-induced rock burst hazards. Moreover, mine trial was conducted in Panel 6304-1 of Jisan Mine. The result shows that the stress concentration factor of the front abutment stress was only 1.44; the coal dusts in drill holes didn’t exceed the limits and microseism of large energy didn’t occur during mining mining, indicating that solid backfilling mining could be applied as an effective method for preventing rock burst caused by hard roof.INTRODUCTIONSHard roof refers to the thick strata above the coal seam or thin immediate roof. It is strong with poor joint development. After mining, instead of immediate caving, it will overhang for a large area in the gob, resulting in high stress in front of the face and difficulty in gas dispersion. As a result, the face spalls, the roof exposes and the gas accumulates in the gob. With the continuing advance of the face and increase in area of overhang, the stress in the hard roof will eventually exceed its ultimate strength and cause a large area of caving, followed by quick release of energy concentrated in the roof and coal seam, which may cause rock bursts and other dynamic disasters in the mine as well as serious equipment damage and casualties. Therefore, the hard roof becomes one of the main factors causing rock bursts at the face.Hard roofs in China varies in conditions. It ranges from dozens of meters to hundreds of meters in thickness. However, coal reserve under hard roofs accounts for about 1/3 of the total reserve; moreover, nearly 40% of the fully-mechanized coal mining panels are those with hard roofs and more than 50% of the mining areas are associated with problems of hard roofs. Aiming at this problem, researchers at home and abroad have proposed many solutions, e.g. coal pillar support, strength weakening and forced caving, to prevent rock bursts caused by hard roof. These solutions have been employed in some cases with good results. However, due to the variability in geological conditions of mining and hard roofs, the application of the above solutions is limited."

Jan 1, 2015

By Esterhuizen S. Gabriel, Su W. H. Daniel, Tulu B. Ihsan, Klemetti M. Ted, Mohammed M. Khaled, Gearhart F. Dave

"A numerical-model-based approach was recently developed for estimating the changes in both the horizontal and vertical loading conditions induced by an approaching longwall face. In this approach, a systematic procedure is used to estimate the model inputs. Shearing along the bedding planes is modeled with ubiquitous joint elements and interface elements. Coal is modeled with a newly developed coal mass model. The response of the gob is calibrated with back analysis of subsidence data and the results of previously published laboratory tests on rock fragments. The model results have been verified with the subsidence and stress data recently collected from a longwall mine in the eastern United States. INTRODUCTION In 2015, there were 40 longwall mines operating in the United States, each producing an average of 4.5 million tons of coal per year, and they supplied 60% of the U.S. underground coal production. This represents a substantial increase from 50% three years earlier (Sears, Tulu, and Esterhuizen, 2017). During this period, reportable roof fall rates in U.S. longwall mines also increased. Large roof falls that can block the gateroads are not only a ground-fall hazard, they can disrupt the ventilation system, block the escapeways, and increase the potential for elevated methane levels in the gob. To address these hazards, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Pittsburgh Mining Research Division (PMRD) is conducting research to improve the design of ground control systems in longwall gateroads. Gateroad stability is primarily determined by the longwall pillar design. Generally, the required dimensions of the pillars around a longwall panel are determined first, which then dictates the location of the gate entries relative to the mined panel. The Analysis of Longwall Pillar Stability (ALPS) method is the most accepted gateroad pillar design procedure in the United States (Mark, 1992). The ALPS method accounts for local roof geology in the gateroad stability assessment by including the Coal Mine Roof Rating as an input parameter (Mark, 1992). The key assumption in the ALPS method is that unstable pillars result in unstable gate entries. However, experience provides examples of mines where pillar stability and gateroad stability are only loosely correlated (Su, Draskovich, and Thomas, 2003)."

Jan 1, 2017

By Murali Gadde

Design of underground excavations in coal mines involves two major tasks: estimation of stresses and determination of rock mass strength. Owing to the complicated nature of rock mass, progress in its strength determination has lagged significantly compared to advancements in stress analysis techniques. Also, because of the impracticality of conducting field-scale strength tests, experimental approaches have very limited applicability in estimating rock mass strength. As a result, many empirical rock failure criteria have been developed based on observed performance of in situ rock structures. Unfortunately, all the popular rock mass strength criteria are based on data from large-scale ?isotropic? non-coal structures and thus can not be directly applied to coal mines. In this paper, an attempt has been made to adopt the popular Hoek-Brown (H-B) criterion for use with coal measure rocks. First, the H-B criterion is examined against laboratory triaxial strength data for different types of coal measure rocks. Then, procedures to estimate the H-B rock mass strength parameters relevant to coal measure rocks are suggested. Finally, a case-study has been given to show the usefulness of the proposed strength estimation approach.

Jan 1, 2007

By Kourosh Shahriar

The occurrence of rock falls in underground coal mines entails detrimental effects as fatal or non-fatal injuries on workers, stoppages in mining operations and breakdown of equipment. In this paper, a risk assessment approach on the basis of a decision analysis trend is employed in order to assess the possibility of and manage roof falls. Risk is then assessed by determination of likelihood of occurrence and the cost of consequences (outcomes). In this regard, collected real roof fall data from Tabas and Kerman coal regions comprising of several underground coal mines are used. It is concluded that the annual accidents due to the roof falls occurrence in the all investigated mines are so high that it is economically feasible to improve the support systems and to implement a suitable educational program as well as an accurate supervision and other elements of safety management.

Jan 1, 2009

By Pieter-Jan Kleiterp

Caterpillar has been involved in highwall mining since the purchase of Bucyrus in 2011. The Cat® HW300 is a continuation of the Superior Highwall Miner that was first sold in the USA in 1994. Currently, there are more than 80 machines supplied worldwide, and Caterpillar envisions increasing the population steadily in the coming years. The Cat highwall miner product group, based in Beckley, WV, has been involved in the sales of all miners to date. With the dealer model that Caterpillar is using, more people, dealers in particular, need to be trained on the application of highwall mining. A site investigation is a highwall specialist?s work, and Caterpillar assists dealers and customers in determining the technical feasibility of highwall mining on mine sites. With the ever-increasing amount of requests, it proved to be important that people without highwall mining expertise, yet who are familiar with mining, could perform a very quick analysis of a potential highwall mining site to determine at an early stage if it is worthwhile to invest the time and money of all parties?customer, dealer, and Caterpillar?in further follow-up. Therefore, Caterpillar would like to introduce the Cat HW300 QuickScan tool.

Jan 1, 2014

By Nikzad Oraee, Parham Khajehpour, Kazam Oraee, Arash Goodarzi

"Rock fall related accidents continue to occur in coal mines, although artificial support mechanisms have been used extensively [1]. Roof stability is primarily determined in many underground mines by a limited number of methods that often resort to subjective criteria. It is argued in this paper that stability conditions of mine roof strata, as a key factor in coal mines, must be determined by a survey which proactively investigates fundamental aspects.Failure of rock around the opening happens as a result of both high rock stress conditions and the presence of structural discontinuities. The properties of such discontinuities affect the engineering behavior of rock masses causing wedges or blocks to fall from the roof or slide out of the walls [2]. A practical rule based approach to assess the risk of a roof fall is proposed in the paper. The method is based on the analysis of structural data and the geometry and stability of wedges in underground coal mines. In this regard, an accident causing a huge collapse in a coal mine leading to four fatalities is illustrated by way of a case study. A comprehensive investigation of the hanging wall has been gathered through a systematic collection of evidence. The investigation results are then analyzed, and an interpretation of the evidence gathered is provided.For this purpose, horizontal and vertical profiles are prepared by geophysical methods to define the falling zone and its boundaries. The collapse is then modeled by the use of sophisticated computer programs in order to identify the causes of the accident and hence recommend corrective actions to prevent or minimize reoccurrence probability of similar accidents. The corrective measures are placed into a rule-based framework for the benefit of the mine operators.INTRODUCTIONRoof rock failure has generally been the most dangerous hazard for underground coal mining in the world. Failure of rock around shallow coal mine openings often results from loosening of blocks of rock on the weakened planes under the influence of gravity. This condition is not typically seen in large deep coal mines. There are a number of differences between large mechanized mines and small mines related to ground control [3]."

Jan 1, 2015

By Anthony T. Iannacchione

This study, funded by the Appalachian Research Initiative for Environmental Science (ARIES), examines how mine layout, mining method, and geology interacted to allow water from the Grove No.1 mine pool to discharge into local surface waters. Federal and State regulations prohibit the discharge of acid or iron-producing waters from underground coal mines. Mining companies design barriers around their operations to prevent mine waters from discharging to the surface. The Grove No.1 represents one mine where these designs proved inadequate. Unique geologic conditions at the Grove No.1 mine pool, combined with retreat room-and-pillar mining, contributed to a discharge that required passive water treatment.

Jan 1, 2013