Date of Graduation

1984

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Subsidence engineering is becoming an important aspect of mine planning in the United States due to Surface Mining Reclamation Act of 1977 which became effective on July 1, 1983. This dissertation contains complete field subsidence data for 42 sites in the Northern Appalachian Coalfield. Five well-known empirical methods were used to predict the subsidence profile, and the predicted profiles were compared with observed profiles. It was found that Hyperbolic Function method could predict within 15% of the observed profiles in the critical zone for this region. Seven two-dimensional finite element models were used to predict the subsidence and the subsidence profiles. The predicted and the observed subsidence profiles in all the seven cases were within 15% in the critical zone. The finite element model used the computer program "NASTRAN" developed by NASA in the analysis.

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