Rock Mech. Rock Engng. (2006) 39 (4), 383–393 DOI 10.1007/s00603-005-0077-0 Real Time Analysis and Forecasting of Strata Caving Behaviour during Longwall Operations By S. Tadisetty 1 , K. Matsui 2 , H. Shimada 2 , and R. N. Gupta 1 1 Mining Instrumentation Division, National Institute of Rock Mechanics, Kolar Gold Fields, Karnataka, India 2 Department of Earth Resources Engineering Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan Received November 5, 2003; accepted September 21, 2005 Published online January 11, 2006 # Springer-Verlag 2006 Summary Discontinuous manual observations and irregular caving characteristics of roof rocks often lead to improper decisions resulting in accidents and production loss. Hence, systematic monitoring of the hanging roof behind the chock shields is necessary for safe and productive mining operations. A real-time application was successfully implemented in an Indian mine for forecasting of hanging roof behaviour to enhance safety and productivity. This paper reports the functioning of real-time TWAP (time weighted average pressure) analysis in the forecasting of hanging roof behaviour in real time. Keywords: Real-time system, strata caving, continuous monitoring, time-weighted average pressure analysis, wireless transmissions, tunneling. 1. Introduction Difficult caving characteristics of overlying strata have been experienced in most of the longwall faces in India. Uncaved span of the roof in the goaf causes excess strata loading on the face supports. This also leads to increase of front abutment pressure. Further increase in the hanging roof behind the supports on a few occasions will lead to dynamic loading on face supports. This situation leads to strata control problems and disturbs the safety and productivity of face operations. Caving of the hanging roof becomes essential to reduce load on supports for safe mining operations (Haramy et al., 1987). The decision to fracturing the hanging roof depends mainly on field data analysis. However, conventional data analysis is not reliable due to the discontinuous nature of manual observations and irregular caving characteristics of the rock mass. Real-time data analy- sis with time weighted average pressure (TWAP) is shown to be an efficient method. This paper discusses the role of real-time analysis in forecasting adverse strata behaviour.