History

The Republican Academic Scientific, Research and Design Institute for Mining Geology, Geomechanics, Geophysics and Mine Surveying, Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution (RANIMI, FSBSI) is the oldest institution engaged in solving a wide range of issues in the sphere of mining (of coal and ore), construction and geological industries.

The history of the institute is in itself an entire era. It dates back to 1929, when the All-Union Mine Surveying Conference was held (on February 13-20, 1929) as initiated by the Scientific and Technical Council of the Coal Industry and under the participation of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Mining and Oil Industry of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy of the USSR, whereat the measures to improve the mine surveying service in the USSR was outlined. In order to implement its resolutions the conference elected the Permanent Mine Surveying Commission with an operating bureau headed by Professor I. M. Bakhurin (Leningrad), which consisted of prominent scientists and production managers, including I. M. Bakhurin, F. V. Bukhinnik, A. I. Disman, O. L. Kulbakh, N. G. Kell and others, and the State Mine Surveying Bureau for performing major mine surveying operations. For the purposes of carrying out research works in the sphere of mine surveying in Donbas a team was founded at Donugol coal enterprise headed by Oswald Leonovich Kulbakh in person, who was an experienced mining engineer-surveyor, the Head of the Geological and Mine Surveying Department at the Donugol trust. The history of RANIMI begins with the creation of that team in 1929.

The purpose of the team's activities was to obtain actual data on the nature of the soil surface displacement, which would make it possible to create a more substantiated regulatory document to replace the then-effective Temporary Rules for Retaining Protective Pillars Under the Protected Buildings and Structures at the Mines of Donbas.

The first to perform and manage these observations were engineers: M. V. Korotkov and V. D. Piryatin, along with I. M. Bakhurin and O. L. Kulbach they were the pioneers of scientific research in the sphere of mine surveying in Donbas.

The instrumental observations of the soil surface displacement in Donbas were expended during that period, for such purposes another division was created with Engineer P. F. Gertner becoming its Head and Executor.

In 1933, the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry endorsed the decision of the first All-Union Congress on Mine Surveying, and the Permanent Mine Surveying Commission by the Scientific and Technical Councils of the Coal, Ore, and Oil Industries of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR was transformed into the Central Scientific and Research Bureau for Mine Surveying (CSRBMS) with its headquarters located in Leningrad.

Professor I. M. Bakhurin was appointed to the position of the first Scientific Director of CSRBMS. The Donugol mine surveying team was transferred into the structure of CSRBMS as its Kharkov territorial division. In 1933, the division consisted of eight researchers and technicians already having sufficient experience in conducting the mentioned observations, and it had a set of high-quality mine surveying instruments in its possession. Some of these instruments were also used by the CSRBMS center in Leningrad for conducting its observations.

The main tasks set up for the CSRBMS were as follows:
improvement of mine surveying technique and methodology, development of mine surveying instruments, research into the rock mass displacement processes under the influence of underground mining, and into the rock pressure.

The general scientific management of all the research was carried out by the Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences I.M. Bakhurin. Ivan Mikhailovich Bakhurin’s role in organizing the CSRBMS’s operation, in its formation and development into a serious and authoritative scientific establishment was really great. I.M. Bakhurin's profound and comprehensive knowledge of all theoretical and practical issues in mine surveying and other related spheres of mining science ensured the correct choice of methodological approaches and techniques in research into the crucial and complex issues in the USSR mining industry, the CSRBMS been engaged in solution whereof.

The CSRBMS covered almost all branches and all stages of mining production, including design-and-surveying works on constructing and operating the collieries. During the first years of its existence, six territorial divisions of CSRBMS were founded for better contact with all the major mining regions of the USSR, the divisions headed by experienced mine surveying specialists were: the Kharkov, the Dnepropetrovsk, the Moscow, the Ural, the West Siberian and the East Siberian divisions. In November 1938, the Kharkov division of the CSRBMS was renamed into the Ukrainian division of the CSRBMS.

Back in the period of the operation of Kharkov division, which was a part of Donugol, and starting from 1929 the methodological principles of research were being developed, technical instructions for conducting observations were being compiled and the first set of observations were carried out at industrial sites under the conditions of steeply sloping seams development. These observations, and as well the data collected at the mines on the damage inflicted on the buildings and structures made it possible to state that the cause of the damage to buildings at the industrial sites and to the mine shaft supports was the application of the Dortmund Rules for the Protection of Structures, that were unsuitable for Donbas conditions. The values ​​of the displacement angles obtained in the result of the observations that correspond to the conditions of the coal seams position in the Central region of Donbas were immediately estimated by Shakhtostroy for the safety pillars allocation, which made it possible to prevent any future damage to the protected objects.Introducing the results of these studies significantly raised the prestige of mine surveying research works and contributed to the expansion of the scope of such studies.

After the transfer of the Donugol team to the CSRBMS the research was developed further. In addition to the Central Region of the Donbas the Kharkov division conducted research at the other territories of the basin for the purpose to promptly accumulate data on the rock and soil surface displacement, to collect information on the cases of coal extraction under buildings and structures, and with the ultimate goal of drafting the Rules for Protecting Structures for the Donetsk Basin. In 1939, the new Rules for Protecting Structures against the Harmful Effects of Mining at the Donetsk Basin were published while being the first regulatory document, which was based on factual materials and replaced the Temporary Rules of 1923, 1927 and 1934 that had been recommended to mine surveyors before.

In addition to the above-mentioned studies in the coal mines, the Kharkov division participated in organizing and conducting observations of the rock displacement in the mines at the Krivoy Rog iron ore basin, in the mines of the Nikitovsky mercury plant and at the Nikopol manganese deposits.

All the Kharkov division’s studies on the rock displacement issues were initially supervised by O. L. Kulbakh, and starting from 1934 they were supervised by M. V. Korotkov. The overall management of the division was performed: from 1932 till 1934 by O. L. Kulbakh; from 1934 till 1937 by M. V. Korotkov; from 1937 till 1941 by I. U. Sakharov; scientific supervision from 1937 till 1941 was carried out by M. V. Korotkov.

The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War ceased the normal activities of the CSRBMS. During the occupation of Donbas the Ukrainian division was evacuated deep into the country’s territory, but after the liberation of Donbas in 1944 it returned to Donetsk and was renamed into the Donetsk team of the CSRBMS. The team’s location in Donetsk, i.e. in close proximity to the mines that were the main production base, made a great positive impact on the future successful operation of the team. Of no less importance for the successful development of research work in the mine surveying sphere was the Central Scientific and Research Bureau (CSRB, Leningrad) been reformed in 1945 into the All-Union Scientific and Research Mine Surveying Institute (VNIMI), and the Ukrainian division of the CSRB was reformed into the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI with its headquarters in Stalino (Donetsk).

In 1945-1946, a large research work was conducted on the restoration of the “wet closed” mines in Donbas. The unheard-of-before volume of water being extensively pumped out of the Donbas mines (with the mine fields separated with minor coal pillars) made it possible to obtain a precious experimental material. That resulted in elaboration of the Instructions for the Allocation of Barrier Pillars in Proximity to the Flooded Workings and between the Adjacent Mines in Donbas. At present, due to the restructuring of the coal industry and wet closing the mines under liquidation, the issues of mining operations close to flooded workings and their being undermined are of the ultimate priority. During this period, the activities of the Branch were also aimed at restoring the team itself. It had to be restored practically from the very start, since the archive materials on the decades of research works, instruments and equipment had been evacuated to Sverdlovsk, and the remaining property got destroyed during the temporary occupation in Kharkov. Thus, as of January 1, 1945 only 7 employees of scientific and production personnel were working at the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI, as of January 1, 1950 the number of employees has already reached 26 people. The overall management was carried out by N.A. Zykin from 1944 till 1945, by L.D. Prozorov from 1945 till 1946, by M.V. Korotkov from 1946 till 1949, and by I.A. Chernyshev from 1949 till 1972. Scientific supervision was carried out by the Candidate of Engineering Science M.V. Korotkov until 1954.

From 1945 till 1950 research work had been conducted in two basic spheres:

• compilation and publication of methodological guidelines for performing mine surveying operations;
• research into the process of rock displacement in the course of bank excavation, ore and salt mining.

By the time the war started, 75 observation stations had been founded in Donbas, by the beginning of 1952 there were more than 110 of such, and in the early 2000s their quantity was about 400.

Up until 1991, the employees of the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI in close cooperation with VNIMI (Leningrad) performed a huge number of experimental studies, and based thereon they compiled regulatory and guiding documents for mine surveying services at collieries, ore mining enterprises, in construction, design and other industries.

After Ukraine had acquired its independence, the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI got transformed into the Ukrainian State Scientific, Research and Design Institute for Mining Geology, Geomechanics and Mine Surveying (UkrNIMI) by the order of the State Department of Coal Industry of Ukraine in December 1992. The following years were devoted to invention and further elaboration of the developments within the profile spheres of the institute.

The period of hardships in the development of the country's economy made a certain impact on the development of science in general. The temporary lack of demand for industry-specific developments and the identification of new promising spheres in science forced the Institute to expand the range of scientific issues to be solved not only in coal extraction sphere, but also to cover other industries, including mining, oil&gas and construction. It was during this difficult period that scientists performed a number of important studies in both applied and fundamental sciences.

A significant contribution to the development of the Institute was made by its Directors: F. M. Mayevsky, I. A. Levchenko, V. M. Kuleshov, N. Y. Azarov, I. F. Ozerov.

Starting from 1998, the Institute became part of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. At that time the main areas of the Institute's activities were:

• research into the formation and evolution of the stress&strain state of rock mass in the course of mineral deposits development;
• protection of buildings and structures against the effects of mining operations;
• prediction and prevention of rock outbursts and gas-dynamic phenomena;
• research and prediction of soil surface displacements;
• development of methods and means to ensure the stability of the entire system of mine workings;
• prospecting for mineral deposits, inter alia at great depths;
• prediction of mining and geological conditions for developing coal deposits;
• monitoring of the geological environment and research into geoecological processes;
• elaboration of information technologies;
• elaboration of methods for predicting the development of landslide processes, assessment of the pit side and mesorelief slopes stability at the undermined territories;
• mine surveying studies.

Fundamental and applied studies were performed in various spheres of science within the framework of departmental (academic) topics. The Institute participated in the implementation of a number of comprehensive target programs of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, innovative&scientific and technical projects.

In May 2015, UkrNIMI of the NAS of Ukraine was renamed into the Republican Academic Scientific, Research and Design Institute for Mining Geology, Geomechanics, Geophysics and Mine Surveying (RANIMI) of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Donetsk People's Republic, in March 2022 RANIMI, SBI was renamed into the Republican Academic Scientific, Research and Design Institute for Mining Geology, Geomechanics, Geophysics and Mine Surveying, Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution (RANIMI, FSBSI) and in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 750-r it was transferred into the federal ownership and assigned into the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

During the difficult period of the Republic’s establishment, during the military actions at the territory of Donbas, the Institute retained its scientific potential and the personnel almost entirely. At present, the Institute has 107 employees, including 1 Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 10 Doctors and 17 Candidates of Science. The priority is still put into the mining science, which requires the introduction of new technologies.

Systematic comprehensive work on a wide range of mining production issues for achieving the goals of ensuring technogenic and environmental safety including geomechanical, geological-geophysical and geodetic research methods made it possible to develop a regulatory and regulatory&methodological basis stipulating the issues of optimal and safe extraction of mineral resources. Thus, throughout the history of the Institute more than 150 regulatory documents have been elaborated on the issues regulating the optimal and safe extraction of mineral resources, ensuring the technogenic and environmental safety, including the ones elaborated in the recent years: the guideline document Location, Protection and Maintenance of Mine Workings in the Coal Mines of the Donetsk Basin (2021) and the regulatory legal act The Rules for Undermining Buildings, Structures and Natural Objects During the Underground Coal Mining Operations (2022).

For a long period of time the Institute was and remained the leading one in the matters of mine surveying, the undermined buildings and structures protection; the matter of ensuring the safety of buildings and structures operated under the challenging mining and geological conditions of existing and liquidated mines still remains one of its basic and crucial tasks. The results of the Institute's research got embodied in dozens of developments that have become the subject to the State Prizes of Ukraine in the sphere of science and technology (2008, 2009, 2013, 2014), in 35 monographs, 400 copyright certificates and patents, and in thousands of scientific articles.

A number of fundamental results have been obtained in the sphere of formation and evolution of the stress&strain and gas-dynamic state of rock masses in the course of coal deposits development that made it possible to elaborate:

• conclusions and recommendations for ensuring the stability of the entire system of underground mine workings, elaborating the efficient measures for their protection;
• engineering methods for calculating the parameters of protective zones and zones of high rock pressure when developing the series of strata; to elaborate the theory and practice of combating rock and coal&gas outbursts;
• methodology for choosing measures for protecting buildings&structures and determining the expenses to compensate for the damage;
• scientific and methodological developments on the research into the mining and geological conditions for coal deposits development using mine geophysics methods for the advance prediction of geological disturbances and geodynamic conditions of the coal-rock mass;
• more than 200 undermining projects and recommendations for the safe operation of undermined buildings, structures, pipeline communications and railways operated under the challenging mining and geological conditions, the implementation whereof made it possible to extract more than 300 million tons of coal;
• auger technology for partial extraction of coal reserves from protective coal pillars, which allows for the extraction of more than 40% of coal from reserves categorized as losses;
• a methodology for elaborating the comprehensive hydrogeological predictions on the consequences of coal enterprises liquidation by way of wet closure approach;
• a physicochemical method for landslide slopes reinforcement;
• a synthetic binding mixture SKAT with an environmental safety level of class E-1, which allows for fixing the unstable rocks of any lithological composition regardless of their moisture content;
• the SSh12K mine seismic acquisition system and the SHAI-8 portable in-mine electromagnetic pulse analyzer, that are approved for use in coal mines prone to gas and/or dust emissions;
• a mobile drilling and analytical system for solving geoecological issues, and equipment for television monitoring of the condition of technical boreholes and vertical shafts that are not equipped with hoisting plants;
• software and methodological means for 3D seismic research at coal and gas-coal deposits;
• special-purpose geoinformational system (GIS) GeoMark, which is inter alia focused on solving geophysical issues. In terms of the number of indicators GeoMark has no analogues in Ukraine and in the CIS countries;
• electronic database of the superdeep borehole Krivoy Rog Superdeep SG-8;
• Array (“Massiv”) subsystem of the computer-assisted system for safety monitoring UTAS, compatible with any automated security system in coal mines and pits.

Starting from 2015, the Institute has been actively working on ensuring the technogenic and environmental safety of Donbas territories upon the coal mines closure, inter alia on:

• the geological environment monitoring and geoecological research;
• rock mass and soil surface displacements research and prediction;
• provision for the entire mine workings system stability;
• comprehensive hydrogeological predictions on the consequences of coal enterprises liquidation by way of wet closure approach;
• prediction of the soil surface deformations reinvigoration triggered by flooding the mine workings, with the maximum permissible flooding depth determined and the safe buildings and structures operation within the mining allotments of the liquidated mines assessed.

The following items were elaborated during that period:

• recommendations for the safe liquidation of the Yuny Kommunar, Structural Subdivision of the Liquidated Mine Dewatering System (town of Yenakiyevo) based on an expert assessment (audit) of the radioecological and hydrogeological state of the Klivage facility performed upon the order of the Head of the DPR and aimed at reducing harsh social tension. The implementation of the recommendations will ensure the environmental safety of the soil surface, radiological and nuclear safety of the population and adjacent territories. The results of this work were granted a hearing and approved at the Parliamentary Hearings of the People's Council of the DPR on 16.02.2018;
• measures for ensuring the long-term stability of the vertical shafts of dewatering systems with submersible pumpsets, and also the pre-design studies have been completed for ensuring the hydraulic safety of mines at the state enterprises of Torezanthracite, Shakhtyorskugol, Donetsk Coal Energy Company, Makeyevugol, Donbasugolestrukturizatsiya, Republican Enterprise, and of the former state enterprises of Artemugol and Ordzhonikidzeugol under the flooded conditions. The introduction of the results of the geomechanical studies performed will make it possible to protect the towns of Gorlovka, Torez and Shakhtyorsk against been flooded and to ensure hydraulic safety of operating mines during the liquidation of the adjacent ones;
• comprehensive hydrogeomechanical predictions on the consequences of flooding the mine workings during the liquidation of operating and closed mines of the Central section of the M. Gorky mine, of the mines in the Sovetsky district of Makeyevka, of the mines in the Torez-Snezhnoye and Kirovsk-Shakhtyorsk districts (more than 50 mines) by way of wet closure approach with the optimal schemes of drainage systems developed, the implementation whereof will ensure the safe mining of coal at adjacent collieries and the environmental safety of the soil surface, and as well will provide for the preservation of residential and industrial constructions at the surface;
• in order to assess the safe operation of buildings and structures a prediction of the soil surface deformations reinvigoration triggered by flooding the mine workings was performed, with the maximum permissible flooding depth within the mining allotments of the mines under liquidation in the Donetsk-Makeevka, Gorlovka and Yenakiyevo regions (more than 30 mines) estimated;
• in order to delineate the boundaries of sinkhole prone zones a survey has been performed at 100 minefields in Donbas, 13609 mine workings with an outlet to the surface have been recorded, 2827 of sinkhole prone zones at the soil surface have been detected and mapped.

The comprehensive scientific research performed by RANIMI (UkrNIMI of the NAS of Ukraine) is of the global significance. The scientific developments of the institute are widely known and actively in demand, the scientists and specialists have been granted with numerous high state and industry awards and have also received recognition at the most respectable international forums.

RANIMI conducts its activities not only in the Donetsk People's Republic, but also in the neighboring countries. The vast experience accumulated throughout the history of the Institute allows solving the issues in mining production at a high scientific level.

The Institute has two founded and operating scientific schools: Mining Geophysics and Geomechanics; with a postgraduate school in the Programs of Study 2.8.6 Geomechanics, Rock Destruction, Mining Aerogasdynamics and Mining Thermophysics and 2.8.8 Geotechnology, Mining Machinery, a Dissertation Council for the defense of theses for D 01.018.01 Candidate and Doctor Degrees; a peer-reviewed Collection of Scientific Papers "Transactions of RANIMI" is published.

RANIMI is a scientific entity of a broad specialization with established schools in the spheres of fundamental disciplines and the latest technologies. The Institute's specialists are engaged in solving a number of issues - from the regional ones and up to the matters of national security. The vast experience accumulated throughout the history of the Institute enables solving such issues at a high scientific level.