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Improving stress environment in development entries through an alternate longwall mining layout

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Abstract

Most coal mines in China use the longwall mining system. High stresses are frequently encountered around development entries at deep mines. This paper presents an alternate longwall mining layout for thick coal seams to minimize ground control problems. In a conventional longwall panel layout, development entries on both ends of the panel are located along the floor, and a coal pillar (chain pillar) is left between adjacent panels to ensure stability. Gateroads on either end of a longwall panel using the layout proposed in this paper are located at different vertical levels within a thick coal seam or in a geologically split coal seam for improved stability. The headgate entry/ies are driven along the floor while the tailgate entry/ies are driven along the roof. Therefore, a longwall face has a gradually elevated or curved section on one end of the panel. For the adjacent panel, the development entry may be located directly below the development entry of the previous panel or may be offset horizontally with respect to it. Based on physical and numerical modeling approaches, it is demonstrated that the stress environment for development entries employing the longwall layout is significantly improved; ground control problems are therefore minimized.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Y. P. Chugh, Professor Emeritus and visiting professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, who performed significant review and editing of the manuscript.

Funding

Financial support for this research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51404270), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2011YZ10), and China Scholarship Council (No. 201506430011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mining Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, No. 79, Yingze Western Avenue, Taiyuan, Shanxi, 030024, China

    Pengfei Wang & Guorui Feng

  2. College of Resource and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, China

    Jingli Zhao & Zhiqiang Wang

  3. Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Jingli Zhao

  4. Shanxi Engineering Research Center for Green Mining, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Guorui Feng

Authors
  1. Pengfei Wang
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  2. Jingli Zhao
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  3. Guorui Feng
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  4. Zhiqiang Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guorui Feng.

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Wang, P., Zhao, J., Feng, G. et al. Improving stress environment in development entries through an alternate longwall mining layout. Arab J Geosci 11, 44 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3376-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-017-3376-3

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