With decades of continuous coal mining, the mining conditions of coal seams are becoming increasingly unfavorable. Coal seams generally include thick coal seams, thin coal seams, uncomplex coal seams and complex coal seams, with different thicknesses and shapes.
Some coal seams have high thickness and inclination and complicated orientation. In such coal seams, it is difficult to use mining machinery such as a coal cutter-loader. To make more effective use of underground resources, it is necessary to mine not only suitable coal seams but also complex coal seams, that is, those for which machinery and equipment were unable to be used in the past because of poor mining conditions.
However, there has been little research on coal mining in coal seams with complex morphology, with high variation in thickness and inclination angle of coal seams.
Pak Jang Hyok, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has proposed a novel coal mining method (a diagonal collapse coal mining method), which can be applied to difficult-to-machine conditions due to the high variations of thickness and inclination angle of coal seams.
This is the method of coal excavation by drilling up tunnels with a diagonal angle, and the transportation of coal in the face is carried out by a chute without using special transport equipment.
The research results show that this method is best suited to apply to complex coal seams varying in inclination angles above 15°, and it can also be applied to coal seams varying in inclination angles below 15°, but it is preferable to take into account economic indices.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Numerical Simulation for the Determination of the Dip Angle of a Diagonal Collapse Coal Mining Method by EDEM Under Complex Anthracite Seam Conditions” in “Advances in Civil Engineering” (SCI).