A preliminary review of the knowledge of coal burst failure mechanisms, control strategies, monitoring and prediction approaches and the knowledge gaps has been conducted. An evaluation of past research strategies has also been conducted and those strategies have been clustered under different tasks.
Three ACARP workshops have been held among the members of the project, industry monitors and other industry experts to review the findings of the project and to identify future research needs within Australia.
Review of the mechanisms highlighted that coal burst (and bumps) is one of the critical and longstanding engineering problems facing the coal mining industry.
Coal bumps and pressure bursts are defined as dynamic rock failure involving a sudden release of strain energy stored within the rock mass due to the disturbance of an unstable state of equilibrium.