Instability characteristics of the cracked roof rock beam under shallow mining conditions

To establish the movement relationship for the roof breaking under shallow mining conditions, the mechanical model of the roof rock beam was built, then the structure instability process of the roof rock beam was analyzed. The changing criterion of the vertical displacement was established and the relationship between the deflection and the rotary motion of roof block was determined. Regarding a mining face in Shangwan Mine, the responsing laws of the deflection and horizontal thrust of the roof rock beam were obtained through FLAC3D numerical analysis. The results show that the structure instability of the cracked roof rock beam depends on the interaction between the vertical load and the horizontal thrust. For the roof rock beam, when the vertical load keeps constant, the horizontal thrust fluctuating rises with increasing deflection. The horizontal thrust increases constantly with the deeper buried depth and the smaller span. Keywords: Shallow mining, Working face, Roof rock beam, Structure stability, Horizontal thrust