Design of hydraulic prop in longwall mining using numerical modeling, a case study: Memradco coal mine No. 5

In semi-mechanized mines, about 35 kg of wood is consumed for each ton of extracted coal, and if the daily production of each stope is equal to 250 tons, its wood consumption will be 8.75 tons. In the same direction, in order to develop mines and increase coal production, semi-mechanized mining has been included in the production plan of companies to use hydraulic props (hydraulic props) to support the roof of the stope instead of using wood. Hydraulic props consist of a cylinder inside where a piston is placed, and by moving the piston inside the cylinder, different lengths are obtained for the prop. The opening and closing of the valve causes the fluid to move between the internal and external parts, lowering and stopping the base according to the load from the roof. This valve is set so that the base can be fixed under different loads. The main goal of this research is to design hydraulic props in order to support the roof of the long working front stope of Memradco coal mine No. 5. In this research, FLAC3D software has been used. For this purpose, different scenarios of 125 and 167 kN hydraulic props have been modeled. In total, 12 scenarios have been considered in three-dimensional (3D) modeling and 7 scenarios in two-dimensional (2D) modeling, considering a safety factor of 2.