NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF CUTTER ROOF FAILURE UNDERWEAK ROOF CONDITIONS

摘要

Cutter roof failure is one of the most common groundcontrol problems affecting the safety and economy of anunderground coal mine operation. Several attempts weremade in the past to understand the processes responsiblefor cutter development and to devise mitigating measures.Yet, many cutter failures still happen and their advanceprediction remains as elusive as before. One of thereasons for the impasse in predicting cutters lies in thelimitations of the current numerical modelingtechnologies. The development and propagation of cuttersis a progressive phenomenon and continuum models canonly approximate this process. Since the discontinuummodeling is severely restricted by the lack of reliableinput data, alternatives must be sought to betterunderstand cutter failures using the continuum models.This paper proposes one approach using strain-softeningmaterial model to simulate the cutter initiation andpropagation process. An attempt has also been made toprovide some insights into the reasons for the change incutter location at different parts of a development layout.