TRANSACTION PAPER

 

Design of optimum roof support systems in South African collieries using a probabilistic design approach

 

 

I. Canbulat^I; J.N. van der Merwe^II

^IAnglo Coal Australia
^IIUniversity of Pretoria

 

 

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SYNOPSIS

When designing coal mine roof support, it is necessary to account for the uncertainties and variability that inherently exist within the rock mass and support elements. The performance of a support system is affected by these uncertainties, which are not taken into account in the current deterministic design methodologies used in South Africa.
The key to the design of a roof support system is a better understanding of roof behaviour and uncertainties that can be encountered during extraction. This paper sets out to develop a method that takes all uncertainties that exist within the rock mass and the mining process into account and provides a quantitative risk-based design methodology.

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