LONGWALL TOP COAL CAVING TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS IN THE NOTATION OF THE SYSTEM-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

The technology of mining high-power coal deposits with production, currently used in many countries of the world, is promising for the coal basins of our country. The structure of the mechanized support section with controlled release ensures the implementation of the technology and makes it possible to work out formations containing particularly valuable grades of coal at full capacity. In addition, technology ensures a high degree of automation and a minimal human presence in the face, which is especially important for improving the safety of mining operations. The work is devoted to a systematic analysis of a part of the technological release process associated with the displacement of rock mass by the feeder of the support section and its loading onto the downhole conveyor. The objects of research were the technological operation of launching coal from the subsurface in the technology of coal release onto a downhole conveyor, as well as the process of measuring the volume of rock mass to register the current feed capacity and select the rational start-up mode. The paper presents a system-functional approach to the description of both objects of research. The system-functional modeling made it possible to explicitly define, structure and systematize the functional blocks that control impacts and resources, as well as the mutual influence of the output parameters of the technological process of producing coal from the subsurface. Based on the conducted system-functional analysis, a stand structure has been developed for measuring the volume of rock mass produced using machine vision and projection of a grid of laser lines, which makes it possible to measure the volume of rock mass in the boundary conditions of illumination, humidity and dustiness, and It is also necessary to determine the influence of environmental factors on the quality of recognition of a laser grid by a machine vision system