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Long-Hole Destress Blasting For Rockburst Control During..
Long-Hole Destress Blasting For Rockburst Control During..
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Petr Konicek
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International Journal of
Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrmms
Institute of Geonics, Institute of Clean Technologies, Academy of Sciences, Ostrava, Czech Republic
CSIR-Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research, Dhanbad, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
abstract
Article history:
Received 13 February 2012
Received in revised form
21 January 2013
Accepted 8 February 2013
The Lazy Colliery in the OstravaKarvina Coaleld of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin adopted modern
longwall technology for an underground extraction of coal seam No. 504. This coal seam is located at a
cover depth of around 700 m. The seam thickness varied from 3.1 m to 5.0 m in the selected longwall
panel. Two overlying coal seams, Nos. 512 and 530 experienced mining at average heights of 58 m and
75 m, respectively, from the planned working horizon of the seam No. 504. The proposed longwall
panel was adversely situated below goaf edges of the workings in these two overlying extracted seams.
An analysis of the inter-burden rock mass among these coal seams showed the presence of strong,
massive strata of sandstones and conglomerates with uniaxial compressive strength values between
70 MPa and 120 MPa. The stress is measured at different mining stages by Compact Conical-ended
Borehole Monitoring (CCBM). A simple laboratory test of the coal sample found a high value of the ratio
of the elastic deformation to the total deformation ( 40.8), indicating the energy-storing characteristic
(prone to burst/bump) of the coal seam. Under the existing geo-mining conditions of the site a suitable
destress blasting (long-hole drilling and blasting) design is adopted to pre-fracture the identied
competent strata from both gate roads in advance. The total length of the panel could be extracted
without any bump/rockburst after the destress blasting. The efciency of the adopted destress blasting
at the different mining stages is evaluated in terms seismic effect (SE), which is calculated through the
available seismic monitoring data and weight of the charged explosive. A systematic adoption of the
destress rock blasting led the 300 m long longwall panel to be smoothly extracted without any further
rockbursts.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
OstravaKarvina Coal Basin
Longwall mining
Rockburst
Destress blasting
1. Introduction
The hard coal reserve of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) is
shared by the Czech Republic and Poland. In this coal basin,
longwall is a dominant underground mining method. The Czech
part of the USCB, known as the OstravaKarvina Coaleld (OKC),
lies in the northeastern part of the country (Fig. 1). Underground
mining of different coal seams took place in the OKC for more
than 200 years. The exhaustion of the upper seams due to the
continuing coal mining activity for such a long period of time has
shifted the activity to a greater depth ( 4600 m). Under the
existing mining and geological conditions of the Karvina subbasin of the USCB, underground extraction of the coal in this basin
is typically accompanied by rockbursts, which are also referred to
as coal bumps. The rst rockbursts occurred in the coaleld in
n
Correspondence to: Department of Geomechanics and Mining Research,
Institute of Geonics, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Studentska 1768,
708 00 Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Republic. Tel.: 420 596 979 224;
fax: 420 596 919 452.
E-mail address: petr.konicek@ugn.cas.cz (P. Konicek).
1365-1609/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2013.02.001
1912 [1]. Different attempts have been made to address rockbursts during underground coal mining in both the Czech [25]
and the Polish [6,7] part of the USCB.
There are various rock mechanics challenges associated with
the underground mining of a deep-seated coal seam [811]. By
analysing geotechnical data from different mines, Chase et al. [12]
nd that the nature of the overlying strata plays a signicant role
in the success of the underground mining of the deep coal seams.
Based on an examination of the geotechnical data of several
mines, rockbursts are the major problem during the underground
coal mining of deep coal seams under strong roof strata (Fig. 2).
During the different underground coalmining activities in the
OKC, rockbursts are more frequent when the mining depth
exceeds 600 m. Depth alone creates a high mining-induced stress
[10], which increases the chance of rockbursts occurrence. Underground extraction of the coalelds bottom coal seam (No. 504)
also met two overlying worked-out coal seams, which consisted
of a number of left-out barrier pillars and ribs with high stress
concentrations. The existence of these stressed pillars/ribs over
the mining activities in No. 504 seam also became a contributing
factor for the rockbursts. As per the sites existing stratigraphic
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P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
Fig. 1. Location of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and map of seismic networks in Karvina sub-basin.
2. Site details
Lunen,
Germany) with a 2500 t hourly capacity was used to
evacuate the dislodged coal from the face.
2.1. Geology
Existing geological and mining conditions of the coal seam No.
504 at Lazy Colliery make underground extraction of this coal
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
143
Fig. 3. A plan and bore-hole section showing different mining panels around the No 140 914 longwall panel and inter-burden thicknesses among different coal seams.
Fig. 4. Deformation variation of the coal sample during a laboratory compression test.
seam challenging. Due to its inherent nature, the coal seam [19] is
also found susceptible to rockbursts. A simple compressive strength
testing of a coal sample of the coal seam in the laboratory showed
an increasing ability of strain energy accumulation. The samples
loading and unloading test results are shown in Fig. 4. In this gure,
the sample is loaded to nearly 60% of its compressive strength
(average 40 MPa) before unloading. It is observed that the ratio of
the elastic deformation to the total deformation of the coal sample
exceeds 0.8, which reects strain energy accumulation characteristic
of the coal seam.
The cover depth of the coal seam in the selected panel varied
from 650 m to 720 m, and the seam has an average inclination
of 9.51 in the northeastern direction, as shown in Fig. 5. Nearly
90% of the coal seams overlying strata are competent rocks
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P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
Fig. 5. Contour lines showing: (A) variation in coal seam thickness (in cm) and (B) depth of cover of the coal seam No. 504 (in m).
Fig. 6. Contour lines showing: (A) percentage of competent rock layers of thickness 410 m in complete overlying rock mass column (B) in inter-bed between seams No.
504 and No. 512 only.
2.2. Mining
Panel No. 140 914 was the rst longwall working in the 9th
mining block of the seam No. 504 (Fig. 3). The mining in this panel
was near the tectonic fault Ceres and the edge of a previously
extracted neighbouring longwall panel of the adjacent mining block,
No. 1 (sequence No. 15 in Fig. 3). The existence of this close goaf is
also a source of high mining-induced stress. As mentioned above, the
goaves of two overlying coal seams at average heights of 58 m and
75 m, respectively, are also likely to inuence the development and
the concentration of the stress during the longwall mining in coal
seam No. 504. The position and the orientation of the extracted
panels in both of the overlying coal seams were not superimposed or
symmetrical, mainly, to protect the safety shaft pillars, located close
to these excavations. Particularly, the working in overlying coal seam
No. 512 experienced an irregular mining, as a number of pillars were
left to protect the safety pillars (Fig. 8) of the main Lazy shafts.
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
145
Fig. 7. Rock quality designation and uniaxial compressive strength in roof strata
above the seam No 504 (data from borehole log).
Fig. 8. Overlapping of different workings seams Nos. 530, 512 and 504 showing
area of additional stress concentrations.
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P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
explosion 4100 kJ/kg), and sand is used for the stemming. The
length and the amount of explosive in each borehole varied
according to the surrounding geo-mining conditions. According
to the condition of panel No. 140 914, the lengths of the charge in
the different holes varied from 26 m to 75 m, the length of the
sand stemming varied from 14 m to 25 m and the percentage of
the loaded lengths of these boreholes ranged from 63% to 85%
(Table 1). An individual group of loaded boreholes, typically
ranging from 3 to 6 boreholes, was red in advance according
to the predened ring order. All of the charged boreholes in a
certain group were red simultaneously, without any delay. The
weight of the explosive charged in different holes varied according to the adopted length of the borehole. The amount of the
explosive charged in a hole of panel No. 140 914 varied from
245 kg to 780 kg. The total amount of explosive (for the three to
six boreholes in a group) blasted at a time in the panel varied
from 1550 kg to 3450 kg.
According to the site conditions, borehole Nos. 18, 101112
and 151153 (Fig. 9) were adopted to create a network of ssures
in the competent strata, lying over the commencement area of
longwall panel No. 140 914. Borehole Nos. 101112, 121136 and
2123 were adopted to dilute the inuence of the edges between
the mined and the un-mined parts of the seams in the overburden. The competent strata over the left out pillars, lying
between tailgate No. 40915 and tectonic fault Ceres, were
managed through borehole Nos. 201213 and 221232. Blasting
in borehole Nos. 4145 and 141145 were used to isolate the
mining in longwall panel No. 140 914 and the safety shaft pillar.
These borehole bastings were designed to develop continuous
fractures in a rock mass, which is likely to be responsible for the
generation and the accumulation of stress concentrations due to
the mining. The competent overlying rock strata, which are
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
147
Table 1
Analysis of destress rock blasting conducted in longwall No. 140 914 of Lazy Colliery.
Stage
Numbers of boreholes
()
Explosive charge
(kg)
Seismic energy
(J)
Seismic effect
()
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
14, 51
101104,
201206
58, 52
105108,
109112,
207210
211, 212,
121124,
125, 126,
221227
4145
141145
128130
131133
228232
134136
2123
63
64
69
72
70
73
73
79
67
82
59
74
74
85
83
70
81
80
1625
1550
1725
2000
1775
2150
1700
1850
2500
2125
1635
3450
3450
2250
2250
1850
2350
2350
1.61E 04
1.39E 04
2.40E 04
3.19E 04
3.03E 04
3.31E 04
1.29E 04
2.50E 04
4.40E 04
5.00E 04
1.80E 04
2.40E 05
3.80E 05
6.20E 04
1.50E 05
1.90E 04
7.80E 04
1.40E 05
4.7
4.3
6.6
7.6
8.1
7.3
3.6
6.4
8.4
11.2
5.2
33.1
52.4
13.1
31.7
4.9
15.8
28.4
Very good
Very good
Extremely
Extremely
Extremely
Extremely
Very good
Extremely
Extremely
Extremely
Very good
Excellent
Excellent
Excellent
Excellent
Very good
Excellent
Excellent
151
152
153
213
154
127
good
good
good
good
good
good
good
after destressing, Uc is the increased strain energy in the surrounding rock, We is the explosion energy, Wf is the energy that is
not consumed in the fracturing of the rock and Wk is seismic
energy (all in J).
Knotek [23], who established evaluation of stress release by
destress blasting due to seismic effect (SE) calculation in OKC,
describes energy balance of destress blasting by following equations:
E1 ) E2
N
X
EjVT
j1
10
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P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
11
ESeisi
EV T i
12
ESeis
KEVT
13
ESeis
c EOKC
EOKC
K eE Q
K eE Q
K OKC Q
14
nearly 1000 cases, and the results are published by Konicek [24].
The obtained data are statistically analysed to determine the
value of KOKC. The values of both of the parameters, the registered
seismic energy and the weight of explosive, were transformed to
suit a linear regression (Fig. 10). From this study, the obtained
value of KOKC is 2.1 for the coal measure formations in the Czech
part of the USCB.
A simple regression approach is adopted to determine value of
the coefcient KOKC [24]. Statistical transformation is used for
normality validation of the obtained data. Here, logarithmic
transformation (i.e., lnEOKC) is used for the seismic energy and
power transformation (i.e., Q1/3) is used for the weight of
explosive. An observed linear dependence between the transformed data of the registered seismic energy (lnEOKC) and the
weight of charge (Q1/3) is represented by a regression line
lnEOKC 4.61530.3981Q1/3. Observed standard deviation of
the transformed registered seismic energy is 1.0653 in this
relationship. The data located under a straight line, parallel to
the regression line and shifted by the standard deviation of the
transformed seismic energy, were selected as depicted in Fig. 10.
Mean value of these selected data were used to determine the
coefcient KOKC.
Based on numerous eld investigations, Konicek [24] published a different approach for determining the constant KOKC
along with a system for evaluating SE. A classication is introduced (Table 2) to evaluate the calculated SE based on criteria,
obtained from the distribution of the data probability from the
calculated seismic effects according to Eq. (14). The obtained
value of constant KOKC ( 2.1) is used for this classication.
According to this approach, if the SE of the destress blasting is
1.7, then it released only 1.7 times more energy than the energy
from the explosive. If the released energy by a destress blasting is
Table 2
A classication for evaluation of the seismic effect.
Seismic effect
SEo 1.7
1.7r SE o3
3r SE o6
6r SE o12
SEZ 12
Insignicant
Good
Very good
Extremely good
Excellent
Fig. 10. Diagram of dependence of transformed data of registered seismic energy on the weight of the charge.
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
less than 1.7 times of the explosive energy, then the destress
blasting effect is insignicant from the stress release point of
view. Similarly, when the SE of the destress blasting is 12, then it
released 12 times more energy than the energy from the explosive. For this condition, the destress blasting effect is excellent
from the stress release point of view.
The stress release assumptions made by Knotek [23] are not
considered in relationships (1) and (2). When the assumptions
made by Knotek [23] are introduced in these two relationships,
and the obtained results are compared with Knoteks Eqs. (4) and
(5); the same conclusions are arrived at. Although seismic energy
is fundamental for the stress release effect and the SE calculations,
it only represents a small portion of the energy coming from the
total energy of the blasting. A considerable amount of the seismic
energy is observed through the rock mass stress release.
5. Seismic monitoring
Geophysical methods are established tools for continuously
evaluating the development of stressstrain conditions due to an
underground excavation. Thus, extensive seismic monitoring was
carried out during the mining in longwall No. 140 914 using a
local seismic network (that of the Lazy Colliery), a regional
seismic network (that of the Karvina sub-basin) and geophones
in each gate-road. The basic scheme of the adopted seismological
network is presented in Fig. 1 and the geophone arrangements at
149
u2 dt
15
Fig. 11. Seismic activity registered during longwall advance-localization map of registered seismic events (longwall advance: (A) 0 m to 85 m, (B) 85 m to 100 m,
(C) 100 m to 165 m, (D) 165 m to 280 m.
150
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
Fig. 12. Seismic activity registered during longwall advance-weekly slope of registered seismic energy and longwall advance (longwall advance from A to D as per Fig. 11).
Table 3
Position of different stress measurement probes installed in and around the panel.
Name of
probe
L1
L2
L3
L4
15.6
11.6
10.7
8.6
2.4
10
3.9
1.5
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
151
Fig. 13. Mining induced stress development; expressed for directions of the
principal stresses S1, S2 and S3 at long wall face stoppageprobes L1 and L2.
Fig. 14. Development of the vertical mining induced stress component due to the
longwall mining.
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P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
Fig. 15. Measured in situ stress by L3 probe; (A) induced principal stresses, (B) orientation of principle stress axes, (C) development of rate of stress changes on L3 gauge
probe commensurate with time (after the destress rock blastingstage 9; see Table 1).
7. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
P. Konicek et al. / International Journal of Rock Mechanics & Mining Sciences 61 (2013) 141153
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