PILLAR FAILURE ASSOCIATED WITH WEAK FLOOR ROCK THREE CASE STUDIES J.W. LATILLA, D.C. OLDROYD E. WEVELL INGWE COAL CORPORATION Coal Pillar Performance Workshop, SANGORM - Coalfields Branch, 21 August 1997INTRODUCTION ‘Three case histories of pillar failure are presented which occurred in weak floor environments. Pillar safety factors, as calculated by the method of Salamon and Munro were relatively high in two of the cases implying that the mode of failure was by pillar punching into the floor. ‘The third case occurred during a stooping operation and it was, seen that pillars punched into the floor during failure. The geometries of the three cases and a description of the failures are given. Finally an attempt has been made to establish a floor punching failure criteria based on these cases. EMASWATI COLLIERY, SECOND PILLAR COLLAPSE A.case of pillar failure was observed on the Main Seam at Emaswati Colliery in Swaziland between 1990 and 1992 which was initially characterised by slow rates of convergence, first recorded in January 1990. Geological conditions were similar to those in a previous case of pillar failure at Emaswati : The coal seam was heavily jointed and overlain by a massive sandstone roof, The floor however, consisted of a weaker shaley sandstone (figure 1). Furthermore the coal was weaker due to the slight metamorphic effects of dolerite intrusions. Dolerite dykes bound the north and south of the panel. (figure 2) Figure 6 shows the rate of convergence plotted against time from January 1990 when the first readings were taken. At first, convergence rates of up to 40mm per annum were ‘measured which subsequently settled down in the 25 to 30mm per annum range. During this time pillar failure was indicated by slabbing and in places by blocks of coal sliding along joints. Floor heave of about 0.1m was noticeable and was the main cause for some monitoring stations being abandoned. The roof was stable and showed no signs of failure or opening up along joints. Early in 1991, additional convergence stations were established, and by March, high rates of movement were detected of up to 511mm per annum (figure 3). Readings taken at more frequent intervals confirmed the trend. (Oldroyd 1997) Pillar wrapping and sand filling was attempted in order to stabilise the area. However, before the remedial work could be completed there was a rapid and unforeseen deterioration in conditions. ‘This resulted in 26 people being trapped in-bye of the collapse necessitating the use of the C.T.C. rescue drill to bring them to surface. ‘Table 1 - Mining parameters, Emaswati Main Seam, Second Collapse Area Cover depth (m) 65 Safety factor (Salamon) 2.0-2.6 Pillar centres (m) 16 Pillar width (m) 9.7 Bord width (m) 6.3 Pillar width / height ratio 31-51 Mining height (m) 1.9-3.1 __| Soft floor thickness (m) 0.50— 13m Massive coarse grained sandstone —+2.5m Coal, Main Seam — 0.5m Sandstone / shale, interlaminated ~ + 1.5m Sandstone —0.5m Coal Footwall No. I seam — 16m Sandstone Figure1 - Typical geology of the main seam and immediate roof and floor, Emaswati CollieryFigure2 - } Bs IODOORR 9) r BAO OOOOGS att) OC Ji MOOI JIIO ACI SAI! Po OOoOoOnmOoOt soOooat Panel layout and convergence stations, at Emaswati CollieryEmaswati - convergence monitoring Cumulative convergence(mm) Figure 3 50 9 | 40 | j os 7 Lea 20 | 104 JAN'S0 JAN'S) | OMAY'94 Date STATION NUMBER v1 —w- 2 -0- 2a a 3b -e- fa —o- Ga 5-6 Figure 4 - Floor heave adjacent to collapsed area, EmaswatiFigure - Floor breaking up close to pillar side, Emaswati Figure 6 - Floor heave in the centre of a bord, EmaswatiFigure 7 - Bottom of mine poles damaged by floor heave, Emaswati Figure 8 - Edge of collapsed area in main haulage, EmaswatiFigure 9 - Severely spalled pillar adjacent to collapsed area, Emaswati Note high frequency of jointing MATLA COAL, No. 1 MINE, 5 SEAM. ‘The area in question was mined in 1981 by continuous miner. Due to roof control problems operations on the 5 seam at Matla 1 were curtailed in 1983 from which date onwards only the underlying 4 seam wes mined, ‘The 5 seam workings were subsequently sealed off close to the shaft. ‘A routine aerial inspection of a Gascor pipeline in late January 1995 revealed that surface subsidence had occurred over panel R14 South. An underground visit by Dr P.S. Buddery confirmed that roughly 17 pillars had collapsed on the 5 seam. By June 1996 the collapse had spread over 64 pillars. (figure 11)Three boreholes were drilled in the area. Slake durability and impact splitting tests were carried out on the core and these revealed that the floor consisted of weak sandy shale, 0.4 to over 0.5m thick. (figure 10) Slake durability tests showed 38.7 to 84.4% loss of mass for the floor material. As part of ongoing quality control sampling at Matla monthly channel samples are taken in all production sections by the Geology Department, An integral part of this process is the ‘measuring of floor contamination, Records of samples taken at the time revealed that 0.31 to 0.49m of floor were mined in the collapsed area. In the only other panel mined on the 5 seam (R14 West) only 0.06 to 0.09m of floor contamination was measured. Tt is felt that in this case the amount of floor contamination is a further indication of the relative strength or weakness of the 5 seam floor. In addition the collapsed area is intersected by.a dyke which may have also reduced the pillar strength. ‘The safety factor of the collapsed pillars was in the region of 2.3 and the width to height ratio in the order of 2.1 It was concluded (Buddery 1995) that the most probable cause of the pillar collapse was the weakening effect of the dyke on the sandstone roof and pillars sinking into and extruding the weak floor rock. ‘That the floor deterioration was time dependent and could well lead to further collapses was also noted. Itis worthy of mention that the only other panel on the 5 seam at Matla 1 (R14 West) was mined on 12m as opposed to 11m centres. Depth and bord widths were very similar and the conditions in the panel remain comparatively good. Table 2 - Mining Parameters, Matla 1, 5 Seam Collapse Area Cover depth (m) 32.5 Safety factor (Salamon) 23 Pillar centres (mm) i Pillar width (m) 5.1 Bord width (m) 59 Pillar width / height ratio 24 Mining height (m) 24 Soft floor thickness (m) 0.49—— 5.5m Sandstone / shale, interlaminated — 0.8m Sandstone, messive, coarse grained — 0.5m Sandy shale ee — 0.4m Carbonaceous shale — 13m Coal — 0.5m Sandy shale - sdi=38.7- 84.4 ——~ L1m Sandstone /shaley sandstone - sdi= 6,2 | —~ 3.0m Sandstone / stratified, medium grained sdi = Slake durability index Figure 10 - Typical geology of the 5 seam and immediate roof and floor near the collapsed area. Matla 1 (Borehole H85 / 100)Pillars Failed 7 28. 53 oO o Date 261/95 TABS 17395, 25195 26/695. 28/6/95 ISAS Outline 1 2 3 4 5 4 (20/5/95) Scale 1:5000 Figure 11. - Surface structures and migrating subsidence patterns, Matla No. 5 seam“Note the channel along. the pillar edge and 90 ogres change in diectiou| Figure 13 - Sidewall slabbing failure, Matla No. 5 seamFigure 15 - Pillar bulging due to slab buckling failure, Matla No. 5 seam* SECTION ENTRAPMENT, ALFRED STOOPING On the 14th June 1996 a whole section's equipment was trapped during a goaf overrun/ pillar failure event during stooping operations on the Alfred seam. The geology is as shown in figure 19. As can be seen the strata overlying the Alfred seam consists largely of sandstone. ‘The roof generally consists of competent sandstone. The floor in this area consists of a weaker laminated sandstone shale, Some 4m below the Alfred lies the Gus seam which in this case had not been mined. ‘Table3 - Mining parameters, Welgedacht, Alfred Seam, Section Entrapment Area Cover depth (m) 165 Safety factor (Salamon) 1s Pillar centres (m) 244 Pillar width (mn) 17.0 Bord width (m) Pillar width / height ratio 43-48 Mining height (m) Soft floor thickness (m) 0.60 Due to deterioration at the top of the pillars by weathering the actual bord width was as much as 8m in places — Massive Sandstone — 3.8m Alfred Seam — 1.2m Laminated sandstone shale — 3.0m Sandstone — 2.0m Gus Seam Figure 16 - Schematic geology at the site of entrapmentDuring stooping operations on the morning of 14th June 1996, the miner noted a few bumps which seemed to be coming from the floor. Later in the shift more bumps were heard and the machine was trapped by sidewall movement. ‘The machine was trammed back a metre but got trapped again, Ten minutes later the panel was abandoned due to the resumption of intense bumping. Later in the day the panel was investigated by the mine overseer and the noises coming from the area were such that he felt the raises up to the panel (some 500m from the goaf edge) would be overrun. On the 4" day the frequency of bumping in the section began to diminish and it was decided to try and re-open the access road. ‘The section was visited by rock engineering personnel and photographed. ‘The section was fairly quiet, but bumps were apparent occasionally. Within + 100m of the goaf floor lift and cracking was visible. Roof fracturing and roof falls were also apparent. Pillar sidewalls were also damaged and it was noted that movement had and was still occurring along prominent joints in the pillars. During the rock engineering examination it became obvious that the pillars had been punched into the weak floor and this had initiated the failure process. In the process sidewall failure, movement along slips and roof break up was continuing. What was actually happening at the goaf edge could not be seen at that time and the fate of the trapped machinery remained largely unknown. ‘A week later the section was visited again and by now it had become quiet. Clearing and supporting of the access road bad advanced another 25m. It was now possible to examine the section right up to the trapped continuous miner at the goaf edge, although this was still 50 - 60m from the open and re-supported section of the roadway. The following observations were made, a) The floor had heaved up by as much as 1.5m in places and some floor slabs which were initially horizontal were now orientated vertically. One shuttle car had been pushed up to the roof of an initially 4.0m high bord. b) The sandstone roof was severely cracked in places and roof falls had occurred along. several roads. ©) Pillars had spalled heavily and heaps of coal lay adjacent to the pillar sides. 4) Convergence of the order 1 to 1.5m was estimated and is illustrated by the bent step ladder in figure 25. It was now obvious that additional loads placed on the pillars by the stooping operation hhad caused the pillars to punch into the floor, after this the pillars themselves began to fail ina relatively stable fashion. At a pillar width to height ratio of 4.7 this is the expected, though not guaranteed, mode of failure.Figure 18 - Floor heave - Note standard sized notebook inside floor crack, WelgedachtFigure 19 - Severe floor heave, Welgedacht Figure 20 - Floor heave in the centre of the roadway, WelgedachtFigure 22 - Pillar spalling at the section waiting place, WelgedachtFigure 24 - Shuttle car thrust against the roof by floor heave, WelgedachtMINING GEOMETRIES OF THE THREE CASES Soft floor has been present in three cases of pillar failure on Ingwe Coal Corporation Mines, namely: Emaswati Coal, Matla Coal No. 1 mine, 5 Seam and Welgedacht Colliery, Alfred Seam. Parameters for the three cases are given below : Table 4 - Mining Parameters - Collapsed Cases Emaswati Matla1 | Welgedacht Main Seam | 5Seam _| Alfred Seam Cover depth (m) 65 325 165 Centres (mm) 16 ul 24.4 Bord width (m) 63 59 63* Mining height (m) 19-3. 24 3.8 Safety factor (Salamon) 2.0 - 2.6 23 15 Pillar width (mm) 97 51 17.0 Width / Height ratio of pillars 3.1-5.1 24 43-48 Soft floor thickness (m) 0.50 0.49 0.60 Ratio of pillar width to soft floor thickness | 19.4 10.0 30.17 -27.3 Ratio of soft floor thickness to pillar width | 0.05 0.09 0.04 Average pillar stress (MPa) 44 3.8 75 * Due to deterioration at the top of the pillars by weathering the actual bord width was as. much as 8m in places. CONCLUSIONS ‘Over the past few years there have been a number of pillar failures on Ingwe mines associated with weak floor. At this stage there is some uncertainty to whether it is weak floor which initiates pillar failure or pillar failure which eventually causes floor punching. ‘The latter case can be explained by the increased stress beneath the pillar caused by the shrinking of the pillar as it scales. For example, when a pillar is first mined it’s average pillar stress maybe 5 MPa calculated using the following :C?H 40w? APS = Where H is the depth below the surface, C is the centre distance and W the pillar width. For C=12m, H=50mand W= 6m the APS is 5 MPa - Ifthe pillar scales by say 0.5m all the way round it's width is reduced which increases the APS to 7.2 MPa, ie. 44%, possibly sufficient to cause pillars to punch into the floor. Tt is also known from work done by Wagner on insitu pillar testing that as a pillar fails the central core becomes more highly loaded. This may, during the latter stages of pillar failure, be sufficient to cause the pillar to punch into the floor. Altematively stable pillars may begin to punch into the floor and as they do so the edges scale and the pillar is pulled apart as the floor lifts up. This eventually causes pillar failure. Itis likely that both mechanisms occur and it will not always be easy to determine which is the dominant cause of pillar failure where poor floor is found. The fact that poor floors have been indicated as the cause of pillar failures requires that the rock engineering and mining profession take this factor into account when designing pillars. ‘This applies particularly where stable pillars are required over the long term such as beneath surface structures or in stooping sections where high loads are placed on the pillars and equipment may be trapped. In order to determine whether there is any correlation between the average pillar stress, pillar width and the width to height ratio of soft floor, various plots were produced. The first of these (figure 25) showed very little from which conclusions could be drawn. However, once the relationship between Average Pillar Stress (APS) and pillar width (gure 26) as well as the ratio of pillar width to thickness of poor floor rock was plotted (figure 27) some clarity became apparent. Itis felt that using the relationship between APS and the ratio of pillar width to thickness of the soft floor is preferable as the latter caters for pillar geometry to some extent. The ratio of pillar width to thickness of soft floor is determined as foliows : W WH = = 7 T, sf Where Tyris the thickness of soft floor.‘A proposed failure criteria is shown in figure 27. Due to the limited data available two further plots are shown representing 20% increase or decrease in the APS for the three cases. ‘The lower line (APS - 20%) allows for some margin of safety and it is recommended that pillars designed in soft floor areas should plot beneath this line. Mining Geometries Figure 25 -40 E i— 30 5 i i Ge ‘6 g2 — -—10 z o — — & <9 + Emaswati Matla 1 Welgedacht Mine safety factor EES pillar width wih pillars ]] wn soft floor YF avg pillar stressAPS vs Pillar Width. Figure 26 ‘Welgedacht —] 2 t t “ } t 1 4 6 8 10 2 4 18 18 Pillar width (rm) = aps20% —m- aps - A- aps#20% APS vs Pillar Width/Soft Floor Figure 27 0 7-— 9 {—Faiture | possible 74 Stress (MPa) Average 5 10 6 20 25 30 35 Pilar Width/Thickness of Soft Floor —¥ aps-20% —m- aps - a> aps+20%ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Mr B. Jack and Dr B. Madden of CSIR-Miningtek for allowing publication of plans and photographs of the Matla 5 seam collapse area. Figures 11 to 15 have been taken directly from their SIMRAC Interim project report, “Matla Colliery No. 5 Seam Pillar Collapse”. REFERENCES WAGENER, H (1974) Determination of the Complete Load Deformation Characteristics of Coal Pillars. Proceedings 3 ISRM Congress, Denver, pp 1076 - 7080 WAGNER, H AND MADDEN B.J, 15 Years of experience with the Design of Coal Pillars in Shallow South African Collieries : An Evaluation of the Performance of the Design Procedures and Recent Improvements. ISRM Symposium Cambridge, United Kingdom. 3 - 6 September 1994 OLDROYD, D.C. Yielding Pillar Design in South African Collieries. MSc Thesis Submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand, 1997, Witbank OLDROYD, D.C. WEVELL, E., KRUGER, A. Continuous Miner Burial on the Gus and Section Entrapment on the Alfred Seam During Pillar Extraction at Welgedacht. October 1996 LATILLA, J.W. Report on Stability of 5 Seam Bord and Pillar Workings Beneath Eskom Pylons, Matla No. 2Mine. Ingwe Rock Engineering Internal Report. July 1996 JACK, B.W, & MADDEN, B.J. Matla Colliery, No. 5 Seam Pillar Collapse. SIMRAC Interim Project Report, December 1995 BUDDERY, P.S. Matla No. 1 Mine, 5 Seam Collapse Area - Memorandum, Ingwe Rock Engineering, June 1995