Practical # 8

Design of pillar
Pillars are located between room or entries. They are more or less either square or rectangular in shape for supporting and maintaining room or entries.they may or may not be extracted after mining. Since pillars are left for support, there failure greatly contributes to ground control problem. There are two main factors to be considered in design of pillar. Overburden load area Pillar strength Overburden load area The area supported by a square pillar covers the area above it and neighboring areas tributary to it. In other worlds a pillar uniformly supports the weights of the rocks overlaying the pillar and one half the widths of room or entries on each side of the pillar. Wp = (Wo +Wp)gh / Wp Wp = average pillar stress P = total load on pillar Wo = widght of room Wp = widght of pillar gh = vertical stress H = depth below surface Pillar strength The experimental result on rock show that there is strength reduction with increasing specimen size. The critical size is defined as the specimen size at which a continuous increase in specimen width causes no significant decrease in strength. The size effect characterizes the difference in strength between the small size specimen tested in lab and large size pillar mined in-situ. There are different formulas for pillar strengths we I will show in design procedure step wise.

1 = k / 36
applicable to cubical pillar having height h> 36 inches

1 = k / h
applicable to cubical pillar having height h less than 36 inches The K is determined by K= c . D

is Uniaxial compressive strengths of coal,

DESIGN PROCEDURE Step 1: From geological data, borehole logs and rock and coal specimen testing tabulate the following uniaxial compressive strengths of roof rock and coal. Step 2: Determine rock mass quality for roof rock and select the roof span B and appropriate roof support. Step 3: Based on uniaxial compressive strengths of coal, c determine the value of K for pillar locality. K= c . D Where D is specimen diametere. Step 4: select the pillar strength formula to estimate the pillar width w, for a known seam height h:

p = 1 (0.64 + 0.36 w/h) 1 = k / 36

step 5: determine the pillar load based on tributary area approach. Sp = 1.1 H (W + B / B) . ( W + B / L) Sp = pillar load in psi H = depth below surface B = entry span from step 2 W = width of pillar L = length of pilar For simplification let W=L so a square pillar. Step 6: select a factor of safety F ranging from 1.5 to 2.0.and equate p/F = Sp, solve for pillar width. Step 7: for economical consideration check whether the %age extraction is acceptable for profitable mining

e = 1 ( W / (W+B) )
Step 8: if the percentage extraction is not acceptable and needs to be increased by decreasing the pillar width w, select from step 7 a pillar width which would give the required coal extraction and determine whether this is acceptable for mine stability. This require calculation of factor of safety. F = p / Sp Step 9: cross-check the result by Holland formula or Orbert-Duvall formula or other formulas.