Use of fem, fuzzy logic and virtual reality in the underground activities. Application to the longwall mining works

Abstract

The private-owned mining company CARBONAR S.A. is mining a coal seam, "Capa Ancha", with a thickness sometimes over 4 meters, using a high productivity long panel equipped with a double drum shearer and a powered roof support. Last year 2003 Carbonar company signed an important research contract (financed by CDTI, Technological and Industrial Development Centre of the Spanish Ministry of Industry) with the University of Oviedo (GIMOC, Mine Engineering and Civil Works Research Group) and the Industrial Automation Institute from the Scientific Research High Council (belonging to the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science) with the objective to study the "Intelligent mining and roof support of the installation". A deep measurement campaign has been developed that, at the present stage, after two and a half coal panels worked, totalize 165.000 measured parameters that are processed through statistical and 2-3D design graphics software. Later on we have started the 2-3D design of the roof support through FEM, then the 4D modelling (stress and deformation calculation in specific moments as the model moves) and finally the development of static and dynamic animations. Recent developments in the Artificial Intelligence and the 3D Interactive Visualization fields and especially the application of techniques based on Fuzzy Logic will allow the incorporation of the human knowledge and experience (sometimes inexact and diffused), the results of the measurement campaigns and the modelling developed, all together inside the research project with no need for the development of conventional complex mathematical expressions, main reason some times for the lack of positive results on this field. This R+D project bets on the synthesis of the referred technologies on the benefit of security and productivity and therefore the cost reduction of the underground mining activities.