A Risk Management Approach for Extracting Underground Coal Pillars

摘要

Analysis for pillar extraction potential (A-PEP) is an intelligent tool which could be used as a preliminary output indicator when considering the secondary extraction of regional support pillars. Underground pillar extraction practices usually incur a significant proportion of safety and fatality statistics in relation to its relative production output which is cause enough to implement a risk management process in areas where bord and pillar mining is dominant. The A -PEP tool assesses pillar extraction potential based on certain physical, risk and economic factors which combine to be indicative of operational success in terms of economic, health and safety attributes. A-PEP has been successfully tested and validated against two unique underground coal pillar operations in South Africa. A-PEP has shown that its predictive nature is consistent to the workings at both operations, irrespective of their unique conditions, and as such it can be successfully used as a mine planning tool.