Innovation and future of mining rock mechanics

The 121 mining method of longwall mining first proposed in England has been widely used around the world.This method requires excavation of two mining roadways and reservation of one coal pillar to mine one working face.Due to considerable excavation of roadway,the mining roadway is generally destroyed during coal mining.The stress concentration in the coal pillar can cause large deformation of surrounding rocks,rockbursts and other disasters,and subsequently a large volume of coal pillar resources will be wasted.To improve the coal recovery rate and reduce excavation of the mining roadway,the 111 mining method of longwall mining was proposed in the former Soviet Union based on the 121 mining method.The 111 mining method requires excavation of one mining roadway and setting one filling body to replace the coal pillar while maintaining another mining roadway to mine one working face.However,because the stress transfer structure of roadway and working face roof has not changed,the problem of stress concentration in the surrounding rocks of roadway has not been well solved.To solve the above problems,the conventional concept utilizing high-strength support to resist the mining pressure for the 121 and 111 mining methods should be updated.The idea is to utilize mining pressure and expansion characteristics of the collapsed rock mass in the goaf to automatically form roadways,avoiding roadway excavation and waste of coal pillar.Based on the basic principles of mining rock mechanics,the“equilibrium mining”theory and the“short cantilever beam”mechanical model are proposed.Key technologies,such as roof directional presplitting technology,negative Poisson’s ratio(NPR)high-prestress constant-resistance support technology,and gangue blocking support technology,are developed following the“equilibrium mining”theory.Accordingly,the 110 and N00 mining methods of an automatically formed roadway(AFR)by roof cutting and pressure releasing without pillars are proposed.The mining methods have been applied to a large number of coal mines with different overburdens,coal seam thicknesses,roof types and gases in China,realizing the integrated mode of coal mining and roadway retaining.On this basis,in view of the complex geological conditions and intelligent mining demand of coal mines,an intelligent and unmanned development direction of the“equilibrium mining”method is prospected.

Simulation of Coupling Process of Flexible Needle Insertion into Soft Tissue Based on ABAQUS

In order to get to the desired target inside the body,it is essential to investigate the needle-tissue coupling process and calculate the tissue deformation.A cantilever beam model is presented to predicting the deflection and bending angle of flexible needle by analyzing the distribution of the force on needle shaft during the procedure of needle insertion into soft tissue.Furthermore,a finite element(FE)coupling model is proposed to simulate the needle-tissue interactive process.The plane and spatial models are created to relate the needle and tissue nodes.Combined with the cantilever beam model and the finite element needle-tissue coupling model,the simulation of needle-tissue interaction was carried out by the ABAQUS software.The comparing experiments are designed to understand the needle-tissue interactions,by which the same points in the experiments and simulation are compared and analyzed.The results show that the displacements in x and z directions in the simulation can accord with the experiments,and the deformation inside the tissue mainly occurs in the axial direction.The study is beneficial to the robot-assisted and virtual needle insertion procedure,and to help the physicians to predict the inside tissue deformation during the treatments.

A method for computing interstory drift spectra with consideration of gravity effects

Vertical loads such as gravity may have an important influence on the seismic response of buildings. In this paper, the continuous shear-beam model is extended to study the seismic demand of shear buildings with consideration of the gravity load effect under near-field ground motions. An analytical solution of the free motion equation of as gravity shear beam model is provided in terms of a Bessel series. A method for computing interstory drift spectra is proposed. The interstory drift spectra for two near-field records with distinct pulses are presented to illustrate the effects of gravity and the damping ratio. The interstory drift spectra are also used to analyze the spectral characteristics of near fault ground motion during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. The effects of the gravity load ratio, damping ratio and higher modes are investigated and discussed.