Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585

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Safety Science
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A new coal pillars design method in order to enhance safety of the retreat mining
in room and pillar mines
E. Ghasemi ⇑, K. Shahriar
Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Most of the proposed methods for coal pillar design determine pillar dimensions using pillar load estima-
Received 12 September 2010 tion only through the tributary area theory. Designing pillar based on these methods is not appropriate in
Accepted 3 November 2011 room and pillar mines with pillar recovery because retreat mining and gob creation generate abutment
Available online 29 November 2011
loads. Neglecting abutment loads in design stage may lead to pillar failure and destructive effects during
retreat mining. Thus proper pillar design has a remarkable effect on mining safety. In this paper, a step-
Keywords: by-step method is presented to design pillars with square shape in room and pillar mines with regard to
Pillar design
existing pillars in the active mining zone (AMZ) and estimating abutment loads according to experimen-
Room and pillar
Retreat mining
tal equations. A decrease in pillar failure risk during retreat mining is the most significant benefit of this
Active mining zone method. This method has been applied to determine optimum pillar dimensions in the main panel of
Abutment loads Tabas Central Mine (TCM), located in the mid-eastern part of Iran. Obtained results show the abutment
loads account for 27% of the total loads applied on pillars in AMZ in this panel. Pillar width, based on this
method, is also obtained 11.6 m.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In underground coal mining, room and pillar is the method of
working preferable for flat, tabular deposits in thin seams, where
rooms or entries are driven in the solid coal to form pillars in the
development panels (Hustrulid, 1982; Hartman, 1987). Pillars of
coal are left behind to support the roof and prevent its collapse,
thereby allowing miners to extract coal between them and to tra-
vel safely. In some cases, the pillars are removed partly or fully in a
later operation, known as retreat mining (also known as secondary
mining or pillar recovery operation). Coal mine pillar design has
been the subject of sustained and intensive research in the major
coal producing countries of the world. Pillar design and stability
are two of the most complicated and extensive problems in mining
related to rock mechanics and ground control subjects. Although
these problems have been investigated for a long time, to date only
a limited understanding of the subject has been gained. The subject
of pillar design in the US goes back nearly a century. Prior to this
the dimensions of pillar were largely determined by experience
based on trial and error, intuition or established rules of thumb,
such research as there was tended to be isolated and sporadic.
But nowadays, various pillar design formulas are developed, based
upon laboratory testing, full-scale pillar testing, and back-analysis
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Hafez 424, P.O. Box 15875-4413, Tehran, Iran.
Tel.: +98 21 6454 2972; fax: +98 21 6640 5846.
E-mail address: ebrahim62.gh@gmail.com (E. Ghasemi).
of failed and successful case histories. In 1980, field studies con-
ducted by the US Bureau of Mines had developed the classic pillar
design methodology. It consisted of three steps (Mark, 2006):
1. Estimating the pillar load;
2. Estimating the pillar strength, and
3. Calculating the pillar safety factor.
The average pillar load, in regular layouts of pillars can be esti-
mated by tributary-area theory. Base on this theory, each individ-
ual pillar is assumed to carry the weight of the overburden
immediately above it. In the other words, a pillar uniformly sup-
ports the weight of rock overlying the pillar and one-half the width
of rooms or entries on each side of the pillar (Peng, 1978). Pillar
strength can be defined as the maximum resistance of a pillar to
axial compression (Brady and Brown, 1993). Empirical evidence
suggests that pillar strength is related to both its volume and its
shape (Salamon and Munro, 1967; Brady and Brown, 1993).
Numerous formulas have been developed that can be used to esti-
mate the strength of pillars in coal mines, which Table 1 shows the
most applicable of them. Each of these formulas estimates the pil-
lar strength in terms of two variables; width to height ratio and
in situ coal strength.
Bieniawski (1981) represented very good classic approach to
pillar design. He at first described the issues involved in pillar de-
sign, and advantages and shortcomings of the available methods
and then represented a logical, step-by-step approach to determine
the coal pillars dimensions in room and pillar mines.

0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2011.11.005
580 E. Ghasemi, K. Shahriar / Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585

Table 1 based on displacement-discontinuity variation of the boundary ele-

Most applicable of empirical strength formula for coal pillars. ment method. Mark and Chase (1997) developed the ARMPS pro-
Pillar strength formulas Reference Pillar cross- Remarks gram based on empirical equations. ARMPS considering the active
(MPa) section mining zone (AMZ) calculates stability factor (ARMPS SF) based on
Khawb Salamon and Square a ¼ 0:66 estimates of the loads applied to, and the load-bearing capacities
Munro (1967) b ¼ 0:46 of, pillars during retreat mining. More than 250 cases of retreat min-
   ing were collected in the US to verify the program (ARMPS help,
S1 0:64 þ 0:36 wh Bieniawski Square –
(1968) 2008). Analyses of all of these cases show that pillar squeeze is the
n h e i o
KV
Rb0 b R
1 þ1
Madden (1991) Square w
h
i5 most frequent type of failure and occurs in about two thirds of cases.
a
e R0 a ¼ 0:0667 14 cases of pillar sudden collapses were observed, which in every
b ¼ 0:5933
case occurred when the ARMPS SF was less than 1.5 and where the
    w 
S1 0:64 þ 0:54 wh  0:18 Lh Mark and Chase Rectangular – pillar width to height ratio was less than 3. All but three of the 17
(1997) bumps occurred when the depth of cover exceeded 400 m. Mark
K – The strength of a unit cube of coal (MPa). and Chase (1997) understood that almost no considerable massive
w – Pillar width (m). pillar collapses occurs when the pillar width to height ratio more
h – Pillar height (m). than 4 is selected. They also observed when the depth of cover is less
S1 – In situ coal strength of critical size (MPa). than 200 m; the minimum required stability factor to prevent mas-
R – Width to height ratio.
R0 – The critical width to height ratio.
sive pillar collapses is 1.5.
V – Pillar volume (m3). One of the keys to miner safety and efficient recovery of the re-
e – The rate of strength increase. serves is to design sufficiently sized pillars that will prevent pillar
L – Pillar length (m). squeezes, excessive pillar spalling, severe floor heave, roof falls,
and pillar bumps. Regarding the above mentioned comments, a
new method to design coal pillars with square shape in room
Nowadays in most of the room and pillar mines in order to in- and pillar mines is presented in the following sections. The pro-
crease recovery and productivity, remanent pillars in panels are posed method is suitable in determining optimum pillar dimen-
recovered by retreat mining. Since, the above mentioned methods sions in room and pillar mines where remanent pillars are
are not appropriate for pillar design because these methods neglect supposed to be extracted after preliminary mining completion.
the abutment loads due to retreat mining and creation of a mined This method, in addition to considering abutment loads, lowers pil-
out gob. Abutment loads affect on the pillars in the adjacent of pil- lar failure risk. The goal of this method is to help ensure that the
lar line and a load more than the one estimated by tributary area pillars developed for future extraction are of adequate size for all
theory applies on pillar (Mark and Chase, 1997; Peng, 1978). Stud- anticipated loading conditions.
ies conducted by van der Merwe (1990) confirm the increase of
load on the pillars in the adjacent of the pillar line. He calculated
2. Methodology
the actual load applied on the pillar during pillar recovery using
a two dimensional boundary element model and estimated the pil-
Similar to the ARMPS program, the proposed method in this pa-
lar safety factor for this condition.
per considers the pillars in the active mining zone (AMZ) because
Pillar design without the abutment loads leads to failure of pil-
these pillars are exposed to maximum load throughout mining
lars during retreat mining. Pillar failures continue to be one of the
process therefore the pillar dimensions obtained by this method
greatest single hazards faced by underground coal miner. Pillar
is more satisfactory. Before describing the design method, a
failures responsible for unsatisfactory conditions included (Mark
description on the AMZ is necessary. As shown in Fig. 1, AMZ in-
et al., 2003):
cludes all of the pillars on the extraction front (or pillar line), and
extends out by the pillar line a distance of 5 times the square root
1. Pillar squeeze,
of the depth of cover. This width of AMZ was selected because
2. Massive pillar collapse, and
measurements of abutment load distributions show that 90% of
3. Coal pillar bumps.
the front abutment load falls within its boundaries (Mark and
Chase, 1997).
The occurrence of pillar failure in underground coal mines entails
The proposed method is base on five principles (Ghasemi et al.,
detrimental effects on miners in the form of injury, disability or fatal-
2010a):
ity as well as mining company due to downtimes, interruptions in
the mining operations, equipment breakdowns, etc. For example in
1. Calculating the maximum load applied on the pillars in AMZ
1992, air blasts due to pillar failure at a southern West Virginia mine
(including development load, abutment loads),
led to destroying of 103 ventilation stopping (Mark et al., 1997). On
2. Calculating the overall load-bearing capacity of the pillars in
August 6th, 2007, violent coal bump occurred in Crandall Canyon
AMZ,
Mine in Utah, and caused the entrapping of six miners. Ten days later,
3. Selecting an appropriate safety factor,
during the heroic rescue effort, another bump occurred causing
4. Calculating the pillar width, and
death of three rescue workers and injuring six others (Heasley,
5. Correcting the pillar width to find the optimum pillar width.
2009a). So, proper pillar design is the key to prevent of pillar failure
and reduce accidents related to retreat mining. In the US, the LaMod-
This method is made up of twelve steps which are described be-
el and the Analysis of Retreat Mining Pillar Stability (ARMPS) pro-
low. Fig. 2 also illustrates different steps of this method in a flow-
grams are used successfully for designing safe retreat mining (Tulu
chart plot. The symbols used here are provided in Table 2.
et al., 2010). LaModel is a PC-based program for calculating the stres-
ses and displacements in coal mines or other thin seam or vein type
deposits (Heasley and Barton, 1999; Heasley, 2009b). It is primarily 2.1. Step 1: Gathering essential data
designed to be utilized by mining engineers for investigating and
optimizing pillar dimensions and layouts in relation to overburden, Essential data to determine the optimum pillar dimensions in
abutment and multiple seam stresses. The program was developed this method are as following:
 E. Ghasemi, K. Shahriar / Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585 581

2.3. Step 3: Calculating development load

Development load are resulted from the overburden weight

over active mining zone. Based on tributary area theory, develop-
ment loads are obtained from the following equation:
pffiffiffiffi
DL ¼ c HðP  BÞ  ð5 HÞ ð3Þ

2.4. Step 4: Calculating the maximum front abutment load

Retreat mining starts with the extraction of the panel pillars.

When enough of the pillars have been extracted, the overburden
strata above the extracted pillars start to cave. As a result of this
roof caving, the active gob is formed. Some portion of the overbur-
Fig. 1. Schematic show of the AMZ (Mark and Chase, 1997).
den load above the gob is carried by the gob, but a considerable
1. Depth of cover: average overburden thickness over the pillar amount of the original overburden load over the gob is transferred
system. to the pillars in AMZ and barrier pillars as a front abutment load
2. Pillar height (Mining height): note that the value of pillar height (see Fig. 1). Front abutment load is calculated based on abutment
is not necessarily equal to the seam thickness. angle concept (Mark, 1992; Tulu et al., 2010) and its distribution
3. Entry width: entry width is usually determined base on roof is different in sub-critical and super-critical panels (see Fig. 3).
rock quality, production rate and operational width of equip- Depending on whether the panel is sub-critical or super-critical,
ments. In this method, crosscuts are assumed to have the same the maximum front abutment load is given by Eqs. (4) and (5)
width as the entries. respectively (Ghasemi et al., 2010a):
4. In situ coal strength. " #
5. Mean unit weight of the overburden. L3AMZ HL2
F L ¼ 0:9 c  þ AMZ ð4Þ
6. Abutment angle: the abutment angle determines how much 24ðtan bÞ 4
load is carried by gob. Measurements of longwall abutment
loads indicated that an abutment angle of 21° is appropriate " #
H2 LAMZ H3
for normal caving conditions. For example, if no caving has F L ¼ 0:9 c ðtan bÞ  ðtan bÞ2 ð5Þ
occurred abutment angle is 90° namely zero load transfer to 2 3
the gob (Mark and Chase, 1997).
7. Panel width: panel width is usually determined base on geo-
2.5. Step 5: Calculating side abutment load
technical conditions, stress state in the region, economic crite-
ria, and environmental conditions. Panel width affects on
The gob area beside the mining panel is the source of side abut-
stress distribution, loading conditions and caving mechanism.
ment load. Two gob areas may exist beside each mining panel. The
An increase in panel width results in an increase of the abut-
side abutment load is shared between the barrier pillar and the
ment loads applied on the pillars adjacent to the gob area.
AMZ. This load the same as front abutment load is calculated by
The tension zone height developed in the roof of the gob area
abutment angle concept. Gob area width and barrier pillar width
also increases as the panel width increases and may lead to a
are required to calculate side abutment load applied on AMZ.
large failure in overburden (Bieniawski, 1987). Based on width
Depending on whether the side gob is sub-critical or super-critical,
to depth ratio (P/H), panels are divided into two categories:
side abutment load is given by Eqs. (6) and (7) respectively (ARMPS
 Sub-critical panels (P/H < 2 tan b), and
help, 2008):
 Super-critical panels (P/H P 2 tan b).
8. Coal Mine Roof Rating (CMRR): this index is used to evaluate !
roof rock quality. In 1994 the CMRR was developed to fill the HW SG W 2SG
SL ¼  c  W AMZ  R ð6Þ
gap between geologic characterization and engineering design 2 8ðtan bÞ
(Mark and Molinda, 2005). This classification system considers
geotechnical factors such as roof rock strength, bedding and H2
other discontinuities, moisture sensitivity of the roof rock, SL ¼ ðtan bÞ c  W AMZ  R ð7Þ
2
groundwater, etc. CMRR varies between zero and 100. Based
In both of them, regarding Eq. (8), R is:
on this index, roof rocks in coal mines are put in three catego-
pffiffiffiffi !3
ries (Chase et al., 2002):
9:3 H  ðW B þ ðB=2ÞÞ
 Weak (CMRR < 45), R¼ pffiffiffiffi ð8Þ
 Intermediate (45 < CMRR < 65), and
9:3 H
 Strong (CMRR > 65). Factor R is transfer rate that shows the percentage of total side
abutment load that is applied to AMZ.
2.2. Step 2: Calculating AMZ dimensions
2.6. Step 6: Calculating the maximum load on AMZ
AMZ length and width are determined from Eqs. (1) and (2)
respectively: The maximum load applied on the pillars in AMZ is calculated
LAMZ ¼ P  B ð1Þ by summation of development load, maximum front abutment
load, and side abutment load according to the following equation:
pffiffiffiffi
W AMZ ¼ 5 H ð2Þ M L ¼ D L þ F L þ SL ð9Þ
582 E. Ghasemi, K. Shahriar / Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585
Fig. 2. Flowchart for proposed coal pillars design method.
2.7. Step 7: Determining number of entries
The number of existing entries is usually determined based
on panel width, rock mechanics conditions, operational equip-
ments, and production rate. At least four entries are needed;
one for accommodating the conveyor, one for fresh air, and
two others in two sides of panel to take the air out (Stefanko,
1983). Economically and operationally, this number of entries
is not adequate in continuous (mechanized) mining method
and at least five entries should be planned in panel which this
number increases up to seven entries in mines with high pro-
duction rate (Hartman, 1987).
2.8. Step 8: Calculating the load-bearing capacity of AMZ
The load-bearing capacity of the pillars in AMZ is calculated by
summing the load-bearing capacities of all of the pillars within its
boundaries. The load-bearing capacity of each pillar is determined
by multiplying their strength by their load-bearing area (Mark and
Chase, 1997). In this method, pillar strength is estimated using the
Bieniawski’s strength formula. The number of existing pillars in
AMZ is calculated according to the following equation:
W AMZ
NP ¼  ðNE  1Þ ð10Þ
ðw þ BÞ
Hence, the overall load-bearing capacity of pillars in AMZ is gi-
ven by the following equation:
T LC ¼ ðNP  SP  w2 Þ  103 ð11Þ
2.9. Step 9: Selecting an appropriate safety factor
The selection of an appropriate safety factor can be based on a
subjective assessment of pillar performance or statistical analysis
of failed and stable cases (Salamon and Munro, 1967; Mark,
1992). According to the studies by Chase et al. (2002), Table 3 pro-
vides suggested safety factors for stability of the pillars in AMZ.
These values are obtained from 250 analyses of panel design in
US and as it is seen from the table, safety factor depends on Coal
Mine Roof Rating (CMRR) as well as depth.
2.10. Step 10: Calculating pillar width
In this step, putting the safety factor in Eq. (12) and solving it,
pillar width is obtained:
T LC ¼ SF  ML ð12Þ
2.11. Step 11: Correcting pillar width to decrease the pillar failure risk
As it is pointed out before, one of the ways to decrease pillar
failure risk, especially large pillar collapses, is to choose a pillar
width to height ratio larger than four. In this step, if the ratio of
the obtained width from the previous step to pillar height is smal-
ler than four, pillar width is increased so a pillar width to height
 E. Ghasemi, K. Shahriar / Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585 583

Table 2 should be calculated using Eq. (13). If D is less than or equal to the
Used symbols in proposed coal pillars design method. sum of pillar width and entry width, the optimum pillar width is
Symbol Description (unit) obtained from Eq. (14). Otherwise, the number of entries is added
AMZ Active mining zone depending on D value and calculations are repeated from step 8:
H Depth of cover (m)
P Panel width (m)
D ¼ LAMZ  ½ðw þ BÞ  ðNE  1Þ ð13Þ
h Pillar height (m)
B Entry width (m) D
c Mean unit weight of the overburden (KN/m3) wP ¼ w þ ð14Þ
ðNE  1Þ
b Abutment angle (°)
LAMZ AMZ length (m) In the following section optimum pillar dimensions in the main
WAMZ AMZ width (m)
panel of the Tabas Central Coal Mine, located in mid-eastern part of
DL Development load (KN)
FL Maximum front abutment load (KN) Iran, is determined in order to validate the proposed method and
SL Side abutment load (KN) results are interpreted. This mine is the first mechanized one in
WSG Side gob width (m) Iran designed as a room and pillar mine. The pillars left behind
WB Barrier pillar width (m)
in this mine are supposed to be extracted as retreat mining in fu-
R Transfer rate (%)
ML Maximum load applied on AMZ (KN)
ture after the preliminary mining finishes. Therefore a proper pillar
SP Pillar strength (MPa) design can has a remarkable influence on higher safety and effi-
NE Number of entries ciency of the reserve recovery in this mine.
NP Number of pillars in AMZ
TLC Overall load-bearing capacity of AMZ (KN)
SF Safety factor 3. Tabas Central Coal Mine
w Pillar width (m)
D Width difference (m)
Tabas Central Mine (TCM) is the case studied here, located in
wP Optimum pillar width (m)
Tabas coal region approximately 85 km south of Tabas town in
Yazd province in mid-eastern part of Iran (Fig. 4). The mine is
working seam C1 by room and pillar method using continuous
miner and LHD. The C1 seam gradient is 1 in 5 (11°) and seam
thickness is about 2 m. The immediate roof above the seam typi-
cally is weak (CMRR = 37) and consist of 0.1–0.2 m thick mudstone,
siltstone/sandstone interfaces and sandstone channels in some
areas within 3 m which have potential to be water bearing. The
immediate floor is about 1–1.3 m of weak seatearth/mudstone
underlain by stronger mudstones, siltstones/sandstones. The min-
able reserve accounts for 6 million tones of coking coal (Central
Mine Design Report, 2005). The in situ strength of coal, based on
results from uniaxial compressive tests and Gaddy equations (Bie-
niawski, 1987), is 6 MPa.
As can be seen in Fig. 4 the suggested layout for this mine in-
cludes two access drifts, a main panel, and eastern and western
panels in both sides on the main panel. The main panel is initially
Fig. 3. Abutment angle concept in sub-critical and super-critical panels (Mark,
1992).
developed in 2004 with five entries and pillars with 20  20 m dis-
tance between centers. This panel is developed with a continuous
haulage system with 4.5 m wide entries and crosscuts. So, Pillars
left behind this panel are square shaped and width is 15.5 m. Be-
Table 3 cause of weak floor, the pillar height is not equal to the seam thick-
Suggested safety factors for stability of the pillars in AMZ.
ness and is 2.6 m. The current recovery rate is 40%. According to
Depth of cover Weak and intermediate roof Strong roof negotiations with the technical office and the caving behavior ob-
(m) (CMRR 6 65) (CMRR > 65) served in the mine No. 1 (near the TCM), abutment angle in TCM is
H 6 200 P1.5 P1.4 25°, so the main panel is super-critical (Ghasemi et al., 2010b).
200 < H 6 400 1:5  ½ðH  200Þ=333 1:4  ½ðH  200Þ=333 Because of extracting the pillars left behind in the eastern and
400 < H 6 600 0.9 0.8
western panels prior to beginning retreat mining in the main panel,
gob is created in both sides of this panel. Therefore side abutment
load should be considered in calculation of the maximum load ap-
plied on pillars in AMZ. The gob areas are super-critical and the bar-
ratio larger than four is reached. Of course, in order to control and rier pillar width in both sides is 30 m. According to the descriptions
avoid excessive increase of pillar width, the recovery rate is taken given in this section, the parameters required in pillar design in the
into consider. According to experiments and considering economic main panel of the TCM are summarized in Table 4.
purposes in preliminary mining stage, the most suitable recovery
rate varies from 40% to 60%. It should be notice 0.5 m is added to
4. Results
the pillar width each time in this step.
The results of proposed method for main panel of TCM are sum-
2.12. Step 12: Determining the optimum pillar width marized in Table 5. Based on TCM conditions (i.e., depth of cov-
er = 85 m and CMRR = 37) the minimum suitable safety factor for
In this step, the width obtained from previous step is corrected pillars stability is 1.5 (see Table 3). As can be seen in Table 5 the
so that the optimum pillar width is determined based on the num- number of entries equal to six and optimum pillar width equal to
ber of pillars in each row and the panel width. In order to at first D 11.6 m were obtained. In comparison with original mine layout,
584 E. Ghasemi, K. Shahriar / Safety Science 50 (2012) 579–585

Fig. 4. Location and suggested layout of the TCM.

Table 4 like classic method and Bieniawski method neglect abutment loads
Essential data for pillar design in the TCM. and determine pillar dimensions only based on development load
(estimated by tributary area theory). Abutment loads increase
Parameter Value Parameter Value
the overall loads applied on the pillars adjacent to the gob area.
H 85 m c 25 KN/m3
When overall load increases, pillar efficiency will decrease and
h 2.6 m b 25°
B 4.5 m P 85 m eventually leads to pillar failure. So, properly sized pillars that
S1 6 MPa CMRR 37 are designed considering abutment loads can result in safety for
miners and more efficient recovery of reserves. In this paper, by
estimation overall loads (including development load and abut-
ment loads) which may be applied on pillars during room and pil-
Table 5 lar mining, a simple method is provided to design coal pillars. One
Summary of results for the TCM.
of the most important advantages of this method is decrease of pil-
Parameter Value Parameter Value lar failure risk, especially massive pillar collapses. The result of this
LAMZ 80.5 m ML 10.87  106 KN method can be taken as the optimum pillar width which causes
WAMZ 46.1 m NE 6 stability of pillars during preliminary and secondary mining.
DL 7.89  106 KN wP 11.6 m Although this method is similar to ARMPS program in structure,
FL 2.05  106 KN Rra 48%
the main difference of proposed method with ARMPS program is
SL 0.93  106 KN
that optimum pillar width in room and pillar mining is calculated
a
Rr – Recovery rate. using this method in order to decrease the pillar failure risk during
retreat mining but in ARMPS program by inputting parameters
one unit was added to entries which can increase the production such as pillar width, panel width, depth of cover and etc., stability
rate if efficient management is applied. Furthermore pillar width of pillars in preliminary and secondary stages are evaluated. It
was decreased remarkably (about 4 m) which causes 8% increase means that in proposed method the pillar width is unknown
in recovery rate that shows the proposed layout is more economic. parameter (i.e. pillar width is main output in proposed method)
Also, it can be seen that development load, front abutment load whereas in ARMPS program the pillar width is one of inputs so
and side abutment load constitutes 73%, 19% and 8% of the total there is no need for calculation of pillar width.
load applied on pillars in AMZ respectively. The negligible side
abutment load can be attributed to the great width of barrier pil- Acknowledgments
lars. Side abutment load is transferred to barrier pillars and pillars
in AMZ so as the barrier pillars width increase, the more load will The authors would like to thank Dr. M. Sharifzadeh, Dr. H. Hash-
applied to them. emolhosseini and Dr. F. Samimi for their kind helps and construc-
To confirm the results of proposed method, optimum pillar tive suggestions during the preparation of manuscript.
width and other related parameters of the TCM were entered as in-
put data to ARMPS program and acceptable stability factors were
obtained, which indicates the mining operation, in both the preli- References
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