Mitigation of floor heave in West Kentucky Coal Mine

A West Kentucky mine operation in No. 11 seam encountered floor heave, due to the localized increase in the thickness of the fireclay mine floor. Floor heave has overridden seals installed in two mined out panels. The third seal’s location was planned for isolating that area from the Mains. A plan of support has been developed to prevent repetition of the floor heave and related problems outby the seals. The applied ground control measures were successful. An attempt of a 3D numerical modeling was made; thus, it would match the observed behavior of the mine floor and could be used as a design tool in similar conditions. The paper describes sequence of events, an applied mitigation ground control system, and the first stage of numerical modeling.