Rock Pressure Department

Mine roadways protection:

• Shaft safety pillars optimization in size and shape to allow reducing coal losses in them by 7-12 %;
• Selection of the optimal parameters for the support of mine shafts and shaft sidings under design, construction and operation; development of efficient measures for their protection;
• Prediction of stability and development of measures for mine roadways protection;
• Estimation of the permissible parameters for mine roadways over- and under-mining;
• Development of methods and means for efficient control over the rock mass stress&strain state;
• Ensuring the environmental safety of coal mining areas in the process of mines construction, operation and close-down;
• Prediction of alteration in deformation fields of a rock mass and at the soil surface;
• Identification of potential rock sinkhole areas;
• Development of engineering measures for preventing and avoiding negative consequences following the mines close-down;
• Estimation of the efficiency of protective over- and under-mining of the seams prone to gas-dynamic phenomena.

An important application of the department’s work is the elaboration of a set of methods, techniques and calculation provisions for determining rock mass stress&strain state that got reflected in a number of regulatory and methodological documents regulating mining enterprises production activities and environmental safety:

• KD 12.01.01.201-98 Location, Protection and Maintenance of Mine Roadways when Developing Coal seams in the Mines. Methodical instructions;
• KD 12.12.005-2001 The Rules for Coal Mine Shafts Liquidation;
• DSTU 101.00159226.001-2003 The Rules for Undermining Buildings, Structures and Natural Objects in the Course of Underground Coal Mining.

The Rock Pressure Department of RANIMI has elaborated a prototype of a small-size device for television surveillance of the state of the support and of the equipment of technical boreholes (0.15 m in diameter) and of mine shafts from the soil surface. (Read more)

At present upon the demand of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of the DPR the Rock Pressure Department is engaged in scientific&research work Elaboration of a Guiding Normative Document “Location, Protection and Maintenance of Mine Roadways at the Coal Mines of the Donetsk Basin”.

One of the major tendencies of the coal industry development in Donbas is the constant increase in depth of the coal seams developed - in a number of mines the depth of coal beds production has already crossed the one-kilometer mark or is approaching it. Under such circumstances, stresses gain significant values even in a virgin rock and are getting significantly increased under the impact of coalface operations. All this results in the coal seams and their host rocks at the bottomhole zones reaching their limit or prohibitive state, which forces to revise and adjust the existing ideas on the nature and parameters of a coal-rock mass deformation and its correlation with the roadways support.

Therefore, one of the Institute’s promising research lines is to establish the mechanism and features of coal-rock mass deformation in the nowadays environment of the underground mining of coal deposits in order to ensure the stability of objects covered with the mining impact zone. The establishment of such mechanisms and features will allow developing efficient ways and means for managing the rock mass deformation process and ensuring the serviceable state of production facilities under the modern conditions.

VNIMI (CSRBMS) started its research in the sphere of rock pressure in 1932. Since then and up till now, the study of geomechanical processes impact on a mine roadway support is one of the basic activities of the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI, carried out by the Rock Pressure Laboratory.

The Rock Pressure Laboratory by the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI was founded on the basis of the thematic team for protection of development workings, and was created as attached to the Soil Displacement Laboratory by the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI in 1952. The team was headed by a graduate of DPI Engineer A.M.Shushkov (consequently, from 1969 till 1973 he was the Head of the Laboratory), and it consisted of graduates from LMI: S.G.Andrushkevich (consequently, Chair Professor at DPI) and V.A.Pirugin. Over the years of its existence the team was growing steadily, and in 1963 it got transformed into the Rock Pressure Laboratory by the Ukrainian Branch of VNIMI with V.M.Polyakov appointed to be its Head for having extensive practical experience as the Chief Mine Surveyor at the Donetskugol trust.

The main specialties of the Laboratory at that time were research into the deformations of coal seams, development workings and permanent mine roadways in the course of their under - and over-mining.

Later on the thematic team for protective seams (headed by I.A.Novichikhin) was included into the Laboratory, and afterwards in 1973 it got separated and became an independent division.

In 1966 the thematic team for powered supports was created at the Laboratory to research into rock pressure manifestations in the course of steep seams development in the mines of Donbas in wide fall zones using АShch, АNShch, АD -type header units. The team stuff consisted of such well-known experts as Y.N.Sapunkov (Team Head), I.A.Yuzhanin, Y.I.Pitalenko, Y.N.Pasishnichenko and others.

In the 70-s the Rock Pressure Laboratory headed by the Candidate of Engineering Science V.M.Kuleshov was using in its developments the scientific research results of such well-known compatriots as V.I.Chernyaev (Doctor of Engineering Science), V.Y.Bailinov, V.F.Vodyanov, E.Sh.Felix (Candidate of Engineering Science), V.S.Pikhovkin (Candidate of Engineering Science), V.B.Bokiy, I.K.Bloshenko and others. Technicians T.N.Afonicheva (Serenko), T.A.Chabanova and V.V.Malygina took an active part in the technical support of the research.

In 1980 the thematic team for the protection and maintenance of vertical mine shafts was founded at the Rock Pressure Laboratory under the membership of I.A.Yuzhanin, S.B.Kulibaba and P.M.Kovalenko. In the 80-s the laboratory was joined by such professionals as V.A.Driban (in 1982), S.V.Goldin, A.M.Terletsky, I.A.Koldunov, A.I. and B. V. Khokhlov (in 1984-1988).

From 1987 till 1992, the laboratory was headed by I.A.Yuzhanin, Candidate of Engineering Science; under his leadership a significant amount of research has been carried out with an emphasis placed on the study of geomechanical processes in the shaft bottom rock mass at a great depth. The results of such studies got protected with a number of copyright certificates.

Starting from 1992, the Rock Pressure Laboratory headed by Victor Alexandrovich Driban has been conducting research in such spheres as stress&strain state of a rock mass; protection, maintenance and efficient location of the entire system of mine roadways; optimization of the parameters for vertical shafts liquidation in the process of their close-down; soil surface deformation processes over the old mine roadways at a shallow depth. The laboratory has developed regulatory and methodological documents that are currently in effect in the coal mining industry.

Starting from 2004 the Laboratory was reorganized into Rock Pressure Department.

On the basis of the research performed, the staff of the Department have defended their theses for the Degrees of the Candidate of Engineering Science (B.V.Khokhlov, M.D.Rozhko, I.A.Koldunov), and of the Doctor of Engineering Science (V.A.Driban and S.B.Kulibaba).

In 2012 the Rock Pressure Department got headed by the Doctor of Engineering Science, Professor Sergey Borisovich Kulibaba – a leading expert in the sphere of geomechanics and rock mass displacement. Under his leadership the research into the processes occurring in a deforming rock mass and their impact on mining was continued. The theoretical basis for assessing the stability of heterogeneous structures has been developed and the ways to improve the rock mass stability in the process of mineral resources mining have been elaborated.

Since 2016, Boris Valentinovich Khokhlov, Candidate of Engineering Science, Senior Researcher is the Department Head. The department proceeded with the inherited lines of scientific activities on studying the rock mass deformation processes and their impact on the underground structures under the conditions of underground mining of coal deposits. The principles for managing rock mass condition and properties have been developed to ensure the stability of underground structures within the mining operations influence zone.