Modelling of Longwall Coal Mining

Increasing the productivity of longwall coal mining in underground mining of thick methane-bearing coal seams is an important problem. To solve this problem a mathematical model and a simulation model of the longwall coal mining operation were developed. The main goal of the modelling of coal mining operations in a fully-mechanized stoping face is the optimization of the longwall coal mining operations, the evaluation of productivity of a drum shearer depending on such factors as technical parameters of the drum shearer, size of a longwall face, flow charts of the drum shearer operation, changing characteristics of the coal seam. As a result of simulation the dependences of the drum shearer productivity on the length of the longwall face and flow charts of the drum shearer operation such as one-way flow chart, shuttle flow chart and bench flow chart were obtained. 2D and 3D visualizations of the execution of the simulation model were realized.