An analytical approach to estimate the mechanical state of roof strata in underground longwall mining

The movement and collapse of roof strata in underground longwall mining is a key trigger factor for the occurrence of dynamic disasters. An accuracy estimation of roof strata mechanical state is critical for the prediction and control of dynamic disaster, such as coal burst and coal-and-gas outburst. An analytical approach is proposed in this work to estimate the mechanical state of roof strata in underground longwall mining. To do so, the unit width of roof strata is considered as a beam structure. A system of 4 simulations differential equations is proposed with 4 local slope data as input parameters to derive the mechanical expression of suspending roof strata. A differential evolution algorithm is further adapted to solve the equation system. In addition, a set of verification tests is carried out to showcase the feasibility and robustness of the proposed method. The results show that the average relative errors of 10 independent tests reach a high accuracy, which is less than 1% for the strata mechanical state control parameters. By using the estimated results, the slope, bending moment and shear force of suspending strata are derived. Moreover, the slope data sampling strategy is also devised. The parameters bound determination method is also proposed to ensure the calculation convergence. The local slope based analytical method proposed in this paper is a feasible approach to estimate the mechanical state of suspended roof strata before first weighting.