Department of Mining Engineering

Facilities

RESEARCH & TESTING FACILITIES AT DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING

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Rock Mechanics Laboratory

• Material Testing System (MTS), (100 tones),an electro-hydraulic stiff testing machine, is used for testing the various physico-mechanical properties of rocks under different conditions of loading.
• Compression testing machine (600 tones), is used for determining various strength parameters of rocks & building materials and for testing of mine supports including hydraulic legs for longwall roof support.
• Transducers and Sensors, consist of precision Load Cells, Pressure Transmitters, Pressure Transducers, Strain Gauges and LVDTs. These are invariably used with on-line PC based Data Acquisition System for recording test parameters.
• PC Based Data Acquisition System, a state of the art 8-Channel Data Acquisition System with sampling rate of 9999 samples per second for on-line acquisition of test data like strain, displacement, pressure, load, temperature etc. This is used invariably in all the laboratory experiments.
• MINIFRAC, is used for determining the in-situ stresses in rock mass by hydro-fracturing technique.
• Hydraulic Leg testing facility, for testing Powered Roof Support used in longwall mining. This is a DGMS approved facility.
• Extensometers, Convergence Recorders, Vibrating Wire stress/strain meters and other modern instruments.

The laboratory has facilities for soil testing, coring, cutting and polishing of rock samples, as well as, equipment for determining cuttability, drillability, abrasivity, weatherability, empirical strength indices and other properties of rocks.

Rock Excavation Laboratory

• High speed video camera, for study of mechanics of rock fragmentation and movement of rock mass and projectiles.
• Fragblast softwares, for rock fragmentation and distribution analysis using the digital images acquired by a video camera.
• Vibration recorders and sophisticated chip based micro seismographs, to record blast vibration levels and analysis for peak particle velocity, dominant frequency, FFT analysis and safe vibration levels.
• VOD probe, for measuring velocity of detonation of explosives inside a blast hole.
• Digital storage oscilloscope along with borehole pressure transducer, for recording detonation pressure inside blast holes.
• Cerchar hardness apparatus, for estimation of drilling parameters and machine specification from small rock samples.
• Sequential blasting machine, for providing very precise and wide range of delays in blasting circuits.
• Near- field acceleration measuring setup, for understanding rock-explosive interaction for blast damage assessment.

Mine Ventilation and Environment Laboratory

• Precise instruments, for carrying out pressure – quantity surveys in mines.
• Experimental set up, for studying methane emission from coal seams.
• Quick thermal conductivity meter, to measure the thermal conductivity of rocks.
• Real time aerosol monitor, gravimetric dust sampler, personal dust sampler, konimeter with projector for studying the air borne respirable dust concentration in mine air.
• Digital sound level meter with recorder, for studying noise levels in mines and mining areas.
• Facilities for studying CPT and IPT, SZ index and U index for finding the susceptibility of coal to spontaneous heating.
• Experimental set-up, to study coal-dust explosion hazard.
• Microprocessor based Gas Chromatograph System, for detection and measurement of different gases in the mine air.
• Mine ventilation computation laboratory, for computation of ventilation problems, is a part of the Mine Ventilation and Environment Laboratory.
• Artificial lung machine and related set-up , for simulation of rescue operations in mines, the first of its kind in an educational institution.

Survey Laboratory

• Electronic total station, for all types of spot surveying with high speed and accuracy.
• Gyro theodolite, for determination of true North.
• Laser eye piece, for correlation survey.
• Micro-optic theodolites, precise levels and other instruments, for all types of surveying and leveling.
• Global Positioning System (GPS)
• Mine surveying computation laboratory forms a part of the Survey Laboratory.
• Digitiser and plotter for development of survey plans.
• GIS Softwares, for extracting and processing the information from mine plans and to update them with the latest information.

Computer Aided Mine Planning and Design (CAMPAD) Laboratory
A large number of stand-alone PCs with LAN and internet connections loaded with mining related softwares allow students to gain hands-on experience of solving the problems assigned to them and for developing problem specific solution programs.

• SURPAC Vision 5 Mine Planning Software package, for mine planning and design.
• Multi-media computer system, for development of computer based training packages.
• GRAFEX, VIBAN, VENTSYS and good number softwares developed in-house.
• MATLAB 6 for simulation & modeling

Pipeline Transportation Laboratory
The pipeline transportation laboratory consists of a pilot scale facility for study of the characteristics of slurry transportation through pipelines. Research Scholars and undergraduate/postgraduate students carryout their project works in the Laboratory on a regular basis.
Longwall mine mechanization laboratory
An unique 30 Meter longwall mock gallery with Powered Support, Shearer, AFC, Stage Loader, Power Pack etc where the students can have their practical, a facility which is not available in any other institute in India. The gallery is fitted with an Environment monitoring package which is connected to the computer.
Laboratory set up for the students to study Mine Roadway losses, Mine Ventilation network, Mine Fan performance, Support Hydraulics are also available. Various types of Air flow measuring units, personal sampler, Methano meters for field study as well as Load Cell, Extensometer, CERCHER apparatus, Shore Sceleroscope, NCB Cone indenter are available for such studies.

Mine Systems Laboratory
A large number of stand-alone PCs with LAN and internet connections loaded with mining related softwares to allow students to gain hands-on experience of solving the problems assigned to them and for developing problem specific solution programs.

Numerical Modeling Laboratory
The Numerical Modelling Laboratory accommodates a large number of Pentium IV multimedia PCs connected to a high performance server. Following softwares are available in the Numerical Modelling laboratory for mine design and numerical simulation of geo-mining problems:

• Strand – 7 (version 2.3.4) finite Element Package, for solving 2-D & 3-D linear and non-linear static and dynamic problems.
• FLAC – 2D software (Version 4.0), Finite difference software for solving linear and non-linear and support problem of excavations in rock.
• ANSYS 10. Finite Element Modelling Package for solving linear and non-linear problems including support problems for excavations in rock.