Technical Aspects of Mining Rate Improvement in Steeply Inclined Coal Seams: A Case Study

Zbigniew Rak, Jerzy Stasica, Zbigniew Burtan and Dariusz Chlebowski
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Zbigniew Rak: Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
Jerzy Stasica: Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
Zbigniew Burtan: Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
Dariusz Chlebowski: Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Kraków, Poland

Resources, 2020, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: This paper presents our experience obtained when mining the thick and steeply-inclined Seam 510 in the Polish Kazimierz-Juliusz coal mine with the use of a unique mechanical face mining system. Seam 510, which is 15–20 m thick and inclined at angles of 40°–45°, was initially treated as uneconomical because effective mining systems were not available. However, to extract high-quality coal resources, a completely mechanized variant of the sublevel caving system was designed based on standard machines and equipment applied in coal mining. Extraction was conducted top-down at the levels of the particular mining sub-level drifts with roof caving. The faces in the extracted coal release areas were protected by a single pair of specially designed mechanized mining system sections. One of the basic problems revealed during extraction of subsequent mining panels, was the observed changeability of the resource mining rates. The extraction losses changed in the available resources from less than 10% to about 50%. This paper presents two typical courses of changes in the extractable resource mining rates. Similar rate changes occurred in both cases with continued mining of a single seam section. Our analysis enabled deposit loss estimations and production output planning under the sublevel caving systems applied in the extraction of seam deposits of similar structure.

Keywords: coal mining; thick and steep coal beds; sublevel caving; extraction effectiveness; deposit extraction rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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