Evaluation and Correlation of Some Properties of Coal

Abstract

Mining is one of the oldest profession in world. The development and enrichment of society and mankind have experienced a direct relationship with it. The excavation of mineral resources comes with its complexities. The advancement of knowledge and technology have helped to address a lot of issues, yet many challenges remain because of the uncertainties in the earth materials. One of the major challenges is to select the right tool. Typically the selection of tools depend on the characteristics of earth materials. Rock mass is highly heterogeneous. Investigations and research in the field of rock mechanics and applied geology help in evaluating the influence of basic rock parameters such as strength, durability, crushability, etc. in effective mine designing and planning. There exists many approaches to correlate the different parameters of the rock mass so that the major influencing parameter can be predicted from a few other parameters that require relatively inexpensive processes at insitu conditions. This investigation was an attempt to determine a few strength parameters of coal and develop interrelationship among those. Coal samples from six different surface locations are collected and their unconfined compressive strength, Brazilian tensile strength, point load index, slake durability, impact strength index as well as the moisture content values have been determined at laboratory. Unconfined compressive strength of rock material is a major parameter that influence the selection of cutting tool. Correlation between these parameters are developed statistically to find the best fit equation. Applicability of a few established criteria as Broch and Franklin (1972), Bieniawski (1975), D’Andrea et al. (1964), Cargill and Shakoor (1990), Rusnak and Mark (2000), Fener et al. (2005), Kahraman et al. (2012) and Altindag and Guney (2010) have been evaluated and the predicted values were compared with those obtained by the laboratory tests.