Synergistic instability of coal pillar and roof system and filling method based on plate model

The security challenges from room and pillar gobs include land subsidence, spontaneous combustion of coal pillars and mine flood caused by gob water. To explore the instability mechanism of room and pillar gob, we established a mechanical model of elastic plate on elastic foundation in which pillars and hard roofs were considered as continuous Winkler foundations and elastic plates, respectively. The synergetic instability of pillar and roof system was analyzed based on plate bending theory and catastrophe theory. In addition, mechanical conditions and math criterion of roof failure and overall instability of coal pillar and roof system were given. Through analyzing both advantages and disadvantages of some technologies such as induced caving, filling, gob sealing and isolation, we presented a new filling method named box-filling, in view of box foundation theory, to control the disasters of ground collapse, water inrush and mine fire. In a gob's treatment project in Ordos, safety assessment and filling design of a room and pillar gob have been done by the mechanical model. The results show that the gob will collapse when the pillars' average yield band is wider than 0.93 m, and box-filling can control land collapse, mine flood and mine fire economically and efficiently. So it is worth to study further and popularize. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.