Running on November 3-4 the workshops will be held in Penrith, NSW and have been planned to tackle the fundamentals of geotechnical engineering and their application in pillar systems.
The seminars will be conducted by University of New South Wales Emeritus Professor Jim Galvin who is also writing a textbook on geotechnical engineering in underground coal mining.
Galvin said the seminars would provide the basics for future workshops on advanced pillar design, excavation and support.
“[It] will start off with some basic theory and lead through pillar load, the load on coal pillars, then on to the strength of coal pillars ... how to calculate the probability that a coal pillar will remain stable," he said.
He says one of the major challenges for geotechnical engineers is the dynamic environment they work in.
“The thing that people have to appreciate with geotechnical engineering is that it's characterised by uncertainty,” Galvin said.
“There are no unique design equations or formulas for working out how strong structures are or what load they will sustain … in the mining environment it's a dynamic environment, it’s changing all the time, and so it's characterised by this pervasive presence of uncertainty."
The cost of the two-day seminar is $A1100 and participants need to be proficient in basic mathematics and bring a scientific calculator.
For more information contact Michele Pilkington at EMENEM Event Management on 0450 320 770.
