Prediction of mine water inflow

Unexpected and excessive mine water inflow during longwall mining may pose a serious issue for relatively wet mines. An accurate estimation of mine water ingress into the longwall goaf area allows mines to effectively manage this phenomenon and install, if required, capable mine water pumping equipment, thus minimizing or avoiding any possible longwall production delay. This will also maximise the safety of underground personnel and expensive mining equipment. The figure below shows the close approximation of the numerically predicted mine water flow rate and the field measured flow rate. CSIRO’s proprietary FEM code COSFLOW was used in this predictive work.

 

Comparison of measured and predicted mine water inflow into two longwall panels.