Coal rib response during bench mining: A case study

In 2016, room-and-pillar mining provided nearly 40% of underground coal production in the United States.Over the past decade, rib falls have resulted in 12 fatalities, representing 28% of the ground fall fatalities in U.S.underground coal mines.Nine of these 12 fatalities(75%) have occurred in room-andpillar mines.The objective of this research is to study the geomechanics of bench room-and-pillar mining and the associated response of high pillar ribs at overburden depths greater than 300 m.This paper provides a definition of the bench technique, the pillar response due to loading, observational data for a case history, a calibrated numerical model of the observed rib response, and application of this calibrated model to a second site.