Probability of failure of South African coal pillars

Index to South African Periodicals

Date

2013-11-01

Language

English

Media Type

research article

Pages

849-857

Keywords

Probability of failure, Predictions, Distribution curves, coal pillars, coal pillar strength, pillar strength formula, safety factor, YES, POF, WR, 2021/09/14, P7090, Coal pillar failure, Coal pillar strength formulae, 1542

Author(s)

Van der Merwe, J.N., Mathey, M.

Publication Title

Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy SAIMM

Volume

113

ISSN

Africa : South Africa

Description

Reports that links between the safety factor and the probability of failure (PoF) were established for two new coal pillar strength formulae. Comments that the method behind the determination of the probability of failure was a comparison of the observed number of failures to a predicted number of stable cases for each safety factor in the entire population of pillars in South Africa. Shows that the pillar strength formula derived by means of the maximum likelihood function results in larger pillars than with the formula derived by means of the overlap reduction technique for the same safety factor, but that the PoF of the larger pillars is less than that for the smaller pillars obtained with the alternative formula.

Subject

MINES, MINERALS