This paper describes successful industrial research and development in the area of underground coal mining equipment automation. A brief background to underground coal mining is given, and the process of longwall mining is detailed. Some of the major limitations and issues impacting on the productivity and safety of the longwall mining process are highlighted, which serve to motivate the automa...

Aiming to reduce the high mining stress observed in large-space roof structures during mechanized mining of thick coal seams, a control technique based on protective-seam mining is proposed. This technique was used to investigate the 8108 working face of the No. 3–5 thick coal seam of the Tashan mine located in the Datong area of Shanxi, China, by means of simulations and field measurements. Th...

Dissatisfaction with work boot design is common in the mining industry. Many underground coal miners believe their work boots contribute to the high incidence of lower limb injuries they experience. Despite this, the most recent research to examine underground coal mining work boot satisfaction was conducted over a decade ago. This present study aimed to address this gap in the literature by as...

As more easily mined deposits are depleted, the reserves are becoming more limited and less favorable. Deposits of coal or trona that are being longwall mined are deep and are getting deeper. Coal bursts and bumps frequently occur within development entries in longwall mining of deep mines due to high stresses. This paper presents a novel patented longwall mining layout “Longwall Mining with Sp...

While several thousand square kilometers of land area have been subject to surface mining in the Central Appalachians, no reliable estimate exists for how much coal is produced per unit landscape disturbance. We provide this estimate using regional satellite-derived mine delineations and historical county-level coal production data for the period 1985-2005, and further relate the aerial extent ...

Coal mining with perspective of health is a crucial area in India. The health condition of mine workers including women and children is one of the most serious impacts of mining. Workers not only suffers from external environmental situation of mines also they faces reduction in quality of life due to denial of access of food availability livelihoods. India, in this aspect poses a much more dan...

The mining chute is an important equipment in the process of coal transportation and coal screening preparation. During the working process, the mining chute will generate a lot of vibration and noise because of constantly friction and impact of gangue and coal blocks. In order to reduce the vibration and noise during the operation of the chute, a new type of foam aluminum laminated structure i...

Geographic pattern of lung cancer mortality in Fukuoka Prefecture showed elevated mortalities among males in the Chikuho district where many coal-mines had long been operated as one of the biggest coal-mining areas in Japan. The analysis in relations of occupations to lung cancer mortality revealed that consistently significant correlations exist between lung cancer mortality, and mining and qu...

The article describes the use of the model integrated with an actual process control system for debugging and testing of control programs for this process control system. Three ways how to use the integrated model are considered. Control programs of the process control pumping system for a coal mine were debugged and tested using hardware-software test bench which includes the integrated model....

The coal is the most important disposable energy in our country. Coal resources play a strategic role in our country's economic and social development, but there are a series of ecological environment problems about the mining and the utilization of coal resources. These problems in the coal mining area have already become an obstacle to the sustainable development and also a major hidden dange...