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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Room-and-pillar mining in bump-prone conditions and thin pillar mining as a bump mitigation technique. Report of Investigations/1993

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5388981
Retreat or pillar recovery mining redistributes the overburden weight onto the adjacent coal pillars in a room-and-pillar section. The additional stress and the resultant energy stored in the remaining pillars can become so great that pillars may bump or violently fail. An investigation at the Gary No. 2 Mine was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the thin pillar mining method for mitigating bump occurrences. Field observations were made and instruments were installed to monitor pillar behavior during extraction. Stress monitoring instruments and roof-to-floor convergence stations were installed in pillars and entries and crosscuts, respectively. Results indicated that high pillar stress concentrations occurred in these bump-prone geologic conditions.
Research Organization:
Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Pittsburgh Research Center
OSTI ID:
5388981
Report Number(s):
PB-94-134855/XAB; BUMINES-RI--9489
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English