Analytical solutions for mining induced horizontal stress in floors of coal mining panels

From the computational mechanics point of view, analytical solutions for any practical engineering problem are very valuable and important because (1) any numerical method, although powerful for dealing with practical problems, has to be validated before it is put into applications; (2) analytical solutions, in many circumstances, are often the sole resource to be used for validating a numerical method. Besides, analytical solutions can also provide a better understanding of basic physics behind practical engineering problems. For the above reasons, analytical solutions for the mining induced horizontal stress in the floors of coal mining panels have been rigorously derived in this paper. In particular, the following main factors are considered in the process of deriving the analytical solutions: (1) effect of the mining depth of a coal panel which reflects the virgin stress in a panel floor; (2) effect of the primary driving force on the top surface of the panel floor; (3) effect of the direct interaction of the panel floor with its underlying strata; (4) effect of the interaction of the panel floor with its left and right side media; (5) effect of the size and the material properties of the panel floor. Since the present analytical solution is derived from the mechanical model, which can be easily and exactly modelled by any numerical method such as the finite element method, it provides a very useful tool for validating such a numerical method for solving this kind of problem in engineering practice. Finally, the present solutions have been used to carry out a parametric study so as to draw many interesting conclusions for the problem considered. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.