The mining industry is highly suitable for the application of robotics and automation technology, since the work is arduous, dangerous, and often repetitive. This paper presents a broad overview of the issues involved in the development of a physically large and complex field robotic system—a 3500-tonne mining machine (dragline). Draglines are “walking cranes” used in open-pit coal mining to re...

This paper describes a visual interactive simulation system of technological processes intended for the development and execution of simulation and emulation models for automated process control systems in coal mining. A set of simulation models of various subsystems of a mine was developed with the help of this simulation system. These models united to create simulation environment. Simulation...

The evolving landscape of Harrison County, Ohio illustrates the interaction between increasing coal demand and modern mining technology upon the available resource base, as modified by changing reclamation policies and practices. A subsistance production period (before 1915) and an early commercial period (1916-1940) were followed by the high, but fluctuating, coal demands of the current commer...

Southern Appalachian forests are recognized as a biodiversity hot spot of global significance, particularly for endemic aquatic salamanders and mussels. The dominant driver of land-cover and land-use change in this region is surface mining, with an ever-increasing proportion occurring as mountaintop mining with valley fill operations (MTVF). In MTVF, seams of coal are exposed using explosives, ...

In the paper a detailed analysis of the dynamic response of a cooling tower shell to mining tremors originated from two main regions of mining activity in Poland (Upper Silesian Coal Basin and Legnica-Glogow Copper District) was presented. The representative time histories registered in the both regions were used as ground motion data in calculations of the dynamic response of the structure. It...

Compared to opencut mining, underground coal mining is more common in Australia due to its lesser impact on the environment. Although there are several underground mining methods, such as the longwall, pillar, bord, and miniwall, longwall mining is the most commonly used method due to its high efficiency. However, longwall mining does lead to significant ground subsidence. Mining subsidence is ...

Land surface deformation can be caused by underground mining activities. The maximum subsidence normally occurs directly above the location of the excavation of the coal seam. In the case where the longwall mining technique is applied, the magnitude and shape of the subsidence bowl are constrained by the longwall structure (pillar). This paper describes the use of satellite radar interferometry...

Taking LandSat TM/ETM+ images as information source, this paper used the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) to extract mining subsidence-resulted surface water body information in Yanzhou coal mining area. It was found that the extracted water body information would be mixed with solid-waste dumps. Taking DN 40 in band 5 as threshold value, the water bodies and solid-waste dumps were iden...