Int. J. Mining and Mineral Engineering, Vol. Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Study of behaviour of workings in longwall panel based on field instrumentation V.R. Sastry* and Roshan Nair Department of Mining Engineering, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangalore – 575025, India E-mail: vedala_sastry@yahoo.co.in E-mail: roshansm@yahoo.com *Corresponding author Abstract: The paper presents field monitoring study of two adjacent longwall panels based on stress measurements in longwall block and barrier, load transferred on to the gate roads and convergence measurements in the gate roads during face retreat in the panels. Results indicated that the section of barrier lying in the goaf experienced higher abutment stress when compared with the section lying ahead of face. There was a transfer of load in gate roads ahead of face after the occurrence of roof fall in goaf. Maximum cumulative convergence of more than 8 mm was observed in the gate roads during weightings. Keywords: longwall mining; barrier; gate roads; goaf; instrumentation. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Sastry, V.R. and Nair, R. (2009) ‘Study of behaviour of workings in longwall panel based on field instrumentation’, Int. J. Mining and Mineral Engineering, Vol. Biographical notes: V.R. Sastry has been working as Professor of Mining Engineering since 1997 at NITK-Surathkal. He is actively involved in Rock Mechanics research, especially in strata control, rock blasting and slope stability. He has 16 R&D projects, over 73 industry-sponsored projects and 113 research publications to his credit. He has guided a score of undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD projects. Roshan Nair is a full-time research scholar working in the area of rock mechanics, longwall mining and numerical modelling for the past six years. His research topic is on assessment and design of barriers in multiseam longwall workings. He has a Master’s Degree in Geotechnical Engineering. 1 Introduction Commercial primary energy consumption in India has grown by about 700% in the last four decades. The current per-capita commercial primary energy consumption in India is about 8.21 × 10 9 EJ/year, which is well below that of developed countries (Anon, 2007a). Several policy initiatives in energy sector may fall short