Numerical Estimation of Suitable Distance between Two Adjacent Panels’ Working Faces in Shortwall Mining

AbstractDetermining a suitable distance between two adjacent panels’ working faces (DBTF) is an important issue that should be considered in underground mining methods. A suitable DBTF causes a decrease in stresses on the pillar, reduces the width of the pillar, and controls the ground subsidence. The main purpose of this study was to determine the suitable DBTF in shortwall mining of the Tabas central coal mine. For this purpose, at the beginning, an algorithm is presented for numerical modeling. In this algorithm, front abutment stresses first and then side abutment stresses are evaluated on the chain pillar. Numerical modeling is performed by finite-difference method software in different distances of P5 and P6 panels’ working faces (5–45 m). The result of this research shows that the front abutment stress on the chain pillars is not different for a distance of 25 m or more. Moreover, by increasing the distance up to 25 m, the side abutment stress in the vicinity of the P5 panel face is decreased on th...

[1]  Mahdi Shabanimashcool,et al.  A numerical study of stress changes in barrier pillars and a border area in a longwall coal mine , 2013 .

[2]  Rajendra Singh,et al.  Assessment of mining induced stress development over coal pillars during depillaring , 2011 .

[3]  Abhiram Kumar Verma,et al.  Numerical Analysis of an Interaction between Hydraulic-Powered Support and Surrounding Rock Strata , 2013 .

[4]  A. Kushwaha,et al.  Exploitation of developed coal mine pillars by shortwall mining—a case example , 2005 .

[5]  John P. Carter,et al.  Vertical stress changes in multi-seam mining under supercritical longwall panels , 2013 .

[6]  Charlie C. Li,et al.  Numerical modelling of longwall mining and stability analysis of the gates in a coal mine , 2012 .

[7]  Michel Aubertin,et al.  Numerical Analyses of the Stress State in Two Neighboring Stopes Excavated and Backfilled in Sequence , 2015 .

[8]  Sankha Widisinghe,et al.  Vertical Stress Determination within Backfilled Mine Stopes , 2014 .

[9]  Guangsheng Liu,et al.  Numerical Analysis of Stress Distribution in Backfilled Stopes Considering Interfaces between the Backfill and Rock Walls , 2017 .

[10]  Giovanni Cascante,et al.  Risk considerations for crown pillar stability assessment for mine closure planning , 2002 .

[11]  Mostafa Sharifzadeh,et al.  A new method for risk assessment of pillar recovery operation , 2010 .

[12]  Reza Khalokakaie,et al.  Thermal–mechanical–numerical analysis of stress distribution in the vicinity of underground coal gasification (UCG) panels , 2014 .

[13]  N. E. Yasitli,et al.  トップ・コール・ケービングによる長壁採炭パネル周辺の応力の3次元数値モデル化 , 2005 .

[14]  Li Li,et al.  Generalized solution for mining backfill design , 2014 .

[15]  Mehdi Najafi,et al.  Prediction of the confidence interval for stability analysis of chain pillars in coal mines , 2011 .

[16]  P. R. Sheorey,et al.  Two-dimensional analysis of stresses on mine pillars at the goaf edge during depillaring with caving : Proc. Symposium on Rock Mech. Dhanbad, India, July 1972. 2F, 1T, 4R. THE INSTN. OF ENGRS. CALCUTTA, INDIA, 1973, P122–129 , 1974 .