Predicting rock pressure manifestations in seam development workings

Conclusions

• 1. By means of investigations on models made from equivalent materials, for the first time the authors have experimentally established the complex influence of the principal geological and technical factors, varying over a wide range of values, on the rock pressure parameters in a seam development working lying in the zone of influence of extraction operations.

• 2. It is found that the rheological properties of the surrounding rocks play a decisive role in the process of deformation of the seam development workings. In field and laboratory investigations, with the aim of obtaining trustworthy results it is therefore necessary to make combined investigations of the properties of the solid rock, including determinations of its rheological characteristics.

• 3. The above investigations show that it is necessary to make a more thorough study of the combined effects of the main geological and technical factors on the geomechanical process, and that experimental investigations made by up-to-date methods of scientific planning should be more widely taken into practice. These methods permit the data necessary for planning the support of development workings to be most completely studied with minimum cost of time and resources, and adopted in production most effectively.

• 4. A nomogram, based on the authors' investigations, permits more correct and more soundly based prediction of the expected displacements and the pressure on the supports in seam development workings driven and supported in a wide range of geological conditions.