Potential for multiple longwall development and pillar extraction in longwall coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China

Research output: ThesisMaster's Thesis (University Course)

Abstract

China is actually the biggest coal producer and consumer in the world and one province, Inner Mongolia, has one of the biggest production shares compared to other provinces within China. Longwall mining is the preferred mining method in the whole of China for underground coal extraction. From these facts it is obvious that for an underground equipment producer like Sandvik China and Inner Mongolia are interesting and important. After an overview of Inner Mongolia and the geology including the main coal fields the actual longwall development process as well as the pillar extraction process are explained and discussed. Further terms are explained which are important for this work. Different mines within Inner Mongolia were studied and after discussions with responsible persons for Inner Mongolia within China this project work was written. The aim of this work is to find out the potential for multiple longwall development and pillar extraction in Inner Mongolia. This has the potential to be a big share of the total machines sold by Sandvik. For people not familiar with the phrases multiple longwall development, longwall mining and pillar extraction all these phrases and methods are explained in the first half of this work. In addition to a summary of the actual longwall development and pillar extraction done actually the potential for doing the longwall development with multiple entries is the main content of this work. The potential of these and the potential of pillar extraction are also discussed. The role of Sandvik within Inner Mongolia as well as the situation relating to Sandvik´s competitors are described and discussed in this project work ending with the results and conclusions of the whole survey and potential for Sandvik.

Details

Translated title of the contributionPotential for multiple longwall development and pillar extraction in longwall coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China
Original languageEnglish
Supervisors/Advisors
Publication statusPublished - 2016