• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.623-646
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• 2021

As the demand for electric power increases with acceleration of electrification at home and abroad, the needs for coal-fired electrical power plant are accordingly increased. However, these coal-fired electrical power plants induce also many environmental problems such as increase of air pollutants, increase of possibility of land contamination by reclamation of coal ash, even though these power plants have a good economical efficiency. In case of a by-product of coal-fired electrical power plants, only 70% of them are recycled and the remaining 30% of by-product are fully buried in surrounding ground. Consequently, this study deals with coal ash backfilling mechanism in abandoned mine openings for the purposes of increasing the coal ash recycling rate as well as securing the mine area stability. In order to analyze the backfill and ground reinforcement by interaction between rock mass and backfills, the copying samples of discontinuous surface with different roughnesses were produced for bond strength tests and direct shear tests. And statistical analysis was also conducted to decide the characteristics of bond and shear behavior with joint roughness and their curing day. Numerical simulations were also analyzed for examining the effect of interface behavior on ground stability.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.305-317
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• 2019

The RMR and Q-system for characterizing rock mass and drilling core, and for estimating the support and reinforcement measures in mine galleries, tunnels and caverns have been widely used by engineers. SMR has been widely used in the rock mass classification for rock slope, but Q-Slope has been introduced into slopes since 2015. In the last ten years, a modified Q-system called Q-slope has been tested by the many authors for application to the benches in open pit mines and excavated road rock slopes. The results have shown that a simple correlation exists between Q-slope values and the long-term stable and unsupported slope angles. Just as RMR and Q have been used together in a tunnel or underground space and complemented by comparison, Q-Slope can be used in parallel with SMR. This paper introduces how to use Q-Slope which has not been announced in Korea and application examples of Pasir open pit coal mine in Indonesia.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.248-260
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• 2009

With regard to oversea mineral resources development, recent trend has been changed from a simple capital investment to a direct development of the resources. In relation to the stability of a slope in large open-pit coal mine, groundwater system was investigated and the validity of horizontal drainage hole was evaluated in Pasir coal mine, Indonesia. In this work, various field tests were carried out for a characterization of groundwater system, which included in-situ permeability measurement, tracer test and monitoring of groundwater levels. Especially, the influence of SM river on the characteristics of the groundwater flow system was mainly inspected. For the permeability measurement, Guelph permeameter was employed, and was found that sandstone was more permeable than mudstone and coal seam. From a comparison of lithological structure and the results of groundwater level monitoring, sandstone and thin coal seam with fractures were found to be a main channel for groundwater flow. In the results of tracer tests, the effect of SM river on the groundwater system depends on the geological structure of its base. To identify the effect of horizontal drainage holes, 2-D groundwater modeling was performed. Four different cases were tested, which are different from the length of drainage hole and the existence of pond on top of the slope. To enhance the drainage effect and slope stability, the drainage hole should be drilled to the depth of coal seam layer, which provides a main pathway of groundwater flow and embedded by sandstone. For this purpose, correct identification of surrounding geology should be preceded.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.479-489
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• 2021

Background: During 2011, a study was undertaken to assess safety conditions in Serbian underground coalmines by analysis of injury data. The study covered all Serbian coalmines, identified week spots from the aspect of safety, and recommended possible courses of action. Since then, Serbia has made changes to safety and health legislation; all coalmines introduced new preventive measures, adopted international standards, and made procedures for risk management. After 10 years a new study has been performed to analyze the impact of these changes. Materials and methods: In this study, the injuries that have occurred in the Serbian underground coal mines over the last 20 years were analyzed. Statistical data analysis was performed by IBM SPSS Statistics v23. The injuries that occurred in the last ten years were compared with the results of the previous study (2000-2009). The average values of injury rates for both periods were compared for each of the categories (severity, age, body part, qualification), and the results were presented as absolute difference or percentile difference. Results: The results showed reduction in the number of injuries in the category of 20-30 years old workers, where the new training procedures for workers, which were set by mandatory legal regulations, certainly contributed. They also showed an increase in the number of injuries in the category of old workers, which indicates that the law did not have a positive effect on this category. Conclusion: The total number of injuries is still high; therefore, it is necessary to introduce mechanization and automation in mines and have a better policy for older workers who retire later nowadays.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.301-310
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• 2007

The prediction of temperature in the workings for the propriety examination for the development of a deep coal bed and the ventilation design is fairly important. It is quite demanding to obtain precise thermal conductivity of rock due to the variety and the complexity of the rock types contiguous to the coal bed. Therefore, to estimate the thermal conductivity corresponding to this geological situation and complex gallery conditions, a computing program which is TemPredict, is developed in this study. It employs Artificial Neural Network and calculates the climatic conditions in galleries. This advanced neural network is based upon the Back-Propagation Algorithm and composed of the input layers that are acceptant of the physical and geological factors of the coal bed and the hidden layers each of which has the 5 and 3 neurons. To verify TemPredict, the calculated result is compared with the measured one at the entrance of -300 ML 9X of Jang-sung production department, Jang-sung Coal Mine. The difference between the results calculated by TemPredict ($25.65^{\circ}C$) and measured ($25.7^{\circ}C$) is only $0.05^{\circ}C$, which is less than the allowable error 5%. The result has more than 95% of very high reliability. The temperature prediction for the main carriage gallery 9X in -425 ML under construction when it is completed is made. Its result is $28.2^{\circ}C$. In the future, it would contribute to the ventilation design for the mine and the underground structures.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.447-456
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• 2008

Open-pit mine slope design must be carried out from the economical efficiency and stability point of view. The overall slope angle is the primary design variable because of limited support or reinforce options available. In this study, the slope angle and critical slope height of large coal mine located in Pasir, Kalimantan, Indonesia were determined from safety point of view. Failure time prediction based on the monitored displacement using inverse velocity was also conducted to make up fir the uncertainty of the slope design. From the study, critical slope height was calculated as $353{\sim}438m$ under safety factor guideline (SF>1.5) and $30^{\circ}$ overall slope angle but loom is recommended as a critical slope height considering the results of sensitivity analysis of strength parameters. The results of inverse velocity analysis also showed good agreement with field slope cases. Therefore, failure of unstable slope can be roughly detected before real slope failure.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.479-490
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• 2021

Pre-drainage of groundwater in the roof aquifer by boreholes is the main method for prevention of roof water disaster, and the drop in the water level during the drainage leads to the variation of the local stress in the overlying strata. Based on a multitude of boreholes for groundwater drainage from aquifer above the 1303 mining face of Longyun Coal Mine, theoretical analysis and numerical simulation are used to investigate the local stress variation in the process of borehole drainage. The results show that due to the drop in the water level of the roof aquifer during the drainage, the stress around the borehole gradually evolved. From the center of the borehole to the outside, a stress-relaxed zone, a stress-elevated zone, and a stress-recovered zone are sequentially formed. Along with the expansion of drainage influence, the stress peak in the stress-elevated zone also moves to the outside. When the radius of influence develops to the maximum, the stress peak position no longer moves outward. When the coal mining face advances to the drainage influence range, the abutment pressure in front of the mining face is superimposed with the high local stress around the borehole, which increases the risk of stress concentration. The present study provides a reference for the stress concentration caused by borehole drainage, which can be potentially utilized in the optimal arrangement of drainage boreholes in underground mining.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.934-942
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• 2005

MANET(Mobile Ad hoc NETwork) routing protocols have merits and demerits under the specific situations. Because it is not clear which protocol is the best under all situations, a suitable routing protocol should be selected depending on the traffic and moving characteristics of nodes. The aim of this paper is to select an appropriate routing protocol to be used by the Korea Coal Corporation. So we designed working scenarios such as coal mining and tunnel supporting that reflected mobile characteristics of nodes. We constructed coal mining and tunnel supporting topology, and analyzed the performance of MANET routing protocols. This result can be used as a basis to select a MANET routing protocol in underground tunnel environment and other mine of the Korea Coal Corporation.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.20 no.2 s.22
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• pp.255-260
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• 1987

The digital dust indicator (Sibata P-5), one of the direct·reading instruments was evaluated for the respirable dust in the underground coal mine environments. As a reference, respirable dust was determined using three cyclones and/or impactors. All the tests were performed on aerosol in twenty underground coal mines. The coefficients of mass-relative concentration were $0.067{\pm}0.054$ (Mean$\pm$Standard deviation) (range: 0.006-0.172). The relationship between relative concentration and temperature was not significant statistically. Also, the relationship of relative concentration and relative humidity was not significant. Mass concentration and relative concentration were $5.31{\pm}5.22mg/m^3$ and $162{\pm}163$ CPM ($Mean{\pm}Standard$ deviation) respectively. The range of mass concentration was $1.22-22.69mg/m^3$; relative concentration 16-628 CPM. The relationship of mass concentration and relative concentration was not significant in these ranges.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.135-141
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• 2002

This research has been conducted to investigate the influence of mined cavities on a tunnel to be constructed around a coal mine. The location and dimension of cavities were supposed by analysing synthetically geological structures and condition of coal beds as well as gangway map since there does not exist any map describing mined cavities. Detailed geological and geophygical survey have also been carried out for the purpose of understanding the geological structure and rock mass conditions. The two dimensional numerical analysis with FLAC has been performed on the geological sections reconstituted from the obtained information and the affects of mined cavities on the tunnel have been assessed.