Welcome to UT3PC.
This site offers a user-friendly finite element program, UT3PC, to address five important problems in underground coal mine design: (1) safety of main entries, (2) barrier pillar size needed for entry protection, (3) safety of bleeder entries during the advance of an adjacent longwall panel, (4) inter-panel barrier pillar size needed for the protection of gate roads, and (5) safety of room and pillars. In addition, the user has the option to include gob loading or no gob loading in the bleeder and interpanel barrier problems. Although, the finite element method is by far the most popular engineering design tool of the digital age, widespread use by the mining community has been impeded by the relatively high cost of and the need for specialized training. Implementation of UT3PC overcomes these impediments in three easy steps: first, a material properties file is prepared for the considered site. Next, a finite element mesh is generated with the aid of an interactive mesh generation program which prepares all the input files required beyond the material properties file prepared in the first step. A third and last step is execution of UT3PC, done by simply clicking on the executable program file. Examples using data from underground coal mining in Utah and Colorado, trona mining in Wyoming, and lead-zinc mining in Missouri illustrate ease of use in application to the five problems addressed.