Research on the Redistribution Law of Lateral Mining Stress and the Bearing Characteristics of Section Coal Pillar in Extra-Thick Fully Mechanized Top-Coal Caving Mining

Due to the change of ground stress environment caused by underground coal mining, the intense lateral mining stress concentration is formed around the stope; so section coal pillar is generally set up to bear the mining pressure, but the different sizes of coal pillars have obvious influence on the bearing capacity of those pillars and the characteristics of mining pressure. Mastering the mechanism characteristics by which coal pillars bearing capacity and mining stress distribution is crucial to identify the reasonable coal pillar size and give full play to the bearing role of section coal pillar, given their importance for the safety and bearing stability of engineering rock mass in underground coal mining. Therefore, the bearing characteristics of section coal pillar and the redistribution of mining stress are achieved with a mechanical model analysis on the basis of the analysis of coal pillar bearing and mining influence characteristics. Moreover, applying the elastic-plastic mechanics theory revealed the mechanical equations of the effective bearing size of coal pillar and redistribution of mining stress in longwall face. Combined with the analysis of a specific engineering example, the research results are as follows. During a roadway excavation, the continuous mining stress transfer occurs “stress redistribution” and the mechanical failure of bearing coal pillar consists of lateral mining and roadway side failures. The bearing coal pillar has two critical dimensions (i.e., the critical dimension We of the self-bearing stability coal pillar and the critical dimension Wp of failure through the coal pillar). The mechanical state of the lateral mining stress redistribution and bearing coal pillar is divided into the three situations: ① when the width of coal pillar W We, three stress concentration areas are present, and the coal pillar at this stage is in a self-bearing stable state. Among all these factors, only the size of coal pillar is completely controllable, so the aspects of safe bearing and reserved size design of coal pillar, after esti