A Model for Determining the Breaking Characteristics of Immediate Roof in Longwall Mines

Nowadays, the longwall mining is one of the most prevalent methods being used in coal mines. For the safety and success of such mines, one of the most important parameters is determination of the periodic roof weighting in-terval. As a matter of fact periodic roof weighting interval (PRWI) is not selected. Design and selection of support in this mining method should be correctly selected considering PRWI. Consequently, the current paper tries to de-velop a new model for determining the periodic roof weighting interval of coal mines. For this, the roof weighting interval is modeled by applying an analytical method and presented a model for determining the roof weighting in-terval. The results are compared with some case studies at coal mines. It is found that that the proposed model can confidently be used for determining the roof weighting interval in coal mines