Lets do a simple model using LaM2D.

In this example, we will do a very simple model

and make use of many of the automatic and
default features of the program.

The very first step is to define the problem we

want to investigate.

This simulation scenario assumes a longwall panel

overlying a room and pillar mine. The upper seam is
5ft thick with 700ft overburden and the lower seam of
7ft thickness is a 100ft below the longwall mine.
The plan of the lower mine is to have 7 entries each
20 ft wide with 40 by 60 ft pillars. The management in
the lower mine are concerned about stress interaction
between the seams, so they plan to superimpose the
production panels directly over each other (LAMODEL
Tutorial 2).

Using the LaM2D model, we want to see if the 40 by

60 pillars will be stable at 800 ft deep and if they can
withstand the inter-seam stress transfer during mining
of the upper panel.

For this mining plan, a 10 ft grid will work very well.

Also, if we make the total grid dimensions 100

elements, or 1000 ft cross section, we should be
able to center the area of interest properly in the
model grid.

To begin entering the parameters into the model, we

need to start the LaM2D Program.

Click on:
Start=>Programs=>WVU=>LaModel2_1=>LaM2D
2.0
This will start LaM2D 2.0, and the first thing that you
will see is the Disclaimer.

Click on:
OK
And the main LaM2D 2.0 window will appear.

In the main window, you see a menu bar across the

top of the main window. The tile bar indicates
UNTITLED meaning no project has been named yet.

The main menu is very similar to the main menu of

the LAMODEL Preprocessor (for those that are
familiar with LAMODEL).

Lets take a closer look at the Main Menu

Click on: File on the menu bar

A fairly standard Windows file menu appears.

The user can: start a new file, save, close, exit, etc.

Click on: Edit_Data on the menu bar

The commands for the primary data input submenus
appear. The primary data input submenus of LaM2D
is similar to the LAMODEL Edit_Data submenus.
These sub-menus are where the numerical
parameters are entered into the input file for
LaM2D.

We will look at these parameter input menus in

much more detail in a few minutes. First, lets
move over to the Edit_Grids menu

Click on: Edit_Grids on the menu bar

The sub-menus for editing the 2D grids appear.
These sub-menus are where the element grids
are graphically created for the input file to
LaM2D.

We will look at this graphical input menus in

much more detail in a few minutes.
Lets go back and start entering the model data for
Example 1 (Example 1 can be found in C: ->
Programs -> WVU -> LaModel2_1 -> LaM2D 2.0).

We start by clicking on: Edit_Data=>Project

Parameters from the menu bar
This brings up the General Model Information
form.

At the start, LaM2D defaults to the Standard Mode.

In this Standard Mode General Model Information
form, we can enter the Model title, the Number Of
seams to be modeled.
In the standard model, only the General Model
Information and the seam geometry data is required
from the user. All other input data automatically
defaults to reasonable values.

Now lets go to the Seam Geometry form by clicking

Next Form.

The Seam Geometry form in the standard mode

allows the user to input the model grid information
(Element width, Number of grid elements) and the
Overburden Depth and Seam Thickness.
Once the Finish button is clicked the element
parameter values are automatically defined.
After this the model grid can be input.

But before we input the model grids lets take a look at

the Advanced Mode data input.

To get to the Advanced Mode, Click the Advanced

button in the General Model Information form.
This brings up the General Model Information for the
advanced mode.

In this form, we can enter a title, in this case

Example 1.
Next we set:
2 Seams
19 Materials (we will see later that this will
allow us to use an automatic yield zone
around the pillars)

ft, psi units

If we then click on: Next Form, in the General

Model Information Form the Overburden / Rock
Mass Parameters form opens.
If we had site-specific rock mass data, or some
experience/engineering judgment, we might adjust
these parameters to better fit our location.
However, since we do not have any site-specific
information, we can just use the default values and
we will get reasonable overburden response.

To continue, we click on: Next Form

This opens the Seam Geometry and

Boundary Conditions form.
As discussed earlier, we will use:
10 ft element width
100 elements in the X direction and
We have 2 seams
Overburden Depth of 700 ft above Seam 1 and
800 ft above Seam 2.

Seam Thickness of 5 ft and 7 ft for seam 1 and 2

respectively.

Next, we need boundary conditions. These are the

conditions at the edge of the model grid. It could be
Rigid at the edge of the grid, in which case the
material outside the grid will have zero convergence
and will effectively support the roof around the grid
edge, or we could specify Symmetric, in which
case the material outside of the grid is a mirror image
of what is inside the grid.

For simplicity, we will go with the default Rigid

conditions.
Click on: Next Form to continue

This opens the Wizard for Defining In-Seam

Material Models window and starts on the
Elastic-Plastic for COAL form.
This form is intended to help the novice user
specify reasonable yielding coal properties.
You can see that we have default parameters
for: Coal Modulus, Plastic Modulus,
Coal Strength, and Poissons Ratio.

Also, we can specify the Number of Material

Sets, and the Number of Yield Zones per
Set

For the Material Parameters, we will just use

the default values:
300000 for Coal Modulus
0 for Plastic Modulus
900 for Coal Strength

0.33 for Poissons ratio

We are now ready for the program to calculate

the necessary values of the coal properties.
We click on: Define material properties for
Coal.
This opens a message window that tells us what
will happen and asks to continue.
We click Yes
Another message window appears telling us the

calculation was successful and that the

associated material codes are A-I.
We click OK to continue

We change the set number to 2 and repeat the

procedure above to define the second set.
We have now created two sets of 9 materials to be
used as yielding coal properties in the model grids.
We will look at the parameters for these materials in a
second, and when we edit the grids, we will see how
these material are used.
For now, lets go generate gob properties by

clicking on the tab: Strain Hardening for Gob

This brings up the Strain Hardening for Gob

form.
This form has a lot of parameters and looks fairly
intimidating; however, we really only need to enter the
two Mandatory Parameters.
The first section, Geometry and Overburden
Parameters, just lists parameters that were entered
elsewhere in the program that are used in the
calculation. The third section, Default Parameters,
gives the suggested starting values for the gob
material, and unless you are very experienced, these
should not be adjusted.

We are now ready for the program to calculate

the necessary values of the gob properties.

We click on: Define material properties for

Gob.

This opens a message window that tells us what

will happen and asks to continue.
We click Yes
Another message window appears asking us if
we want to append the gob material to our
present set of materials.
We click YES
A final message window appears telling us that
the gob material was defined.
We click OK to continue

So lets take a look at the materials that we

have defined.
Click on the Material Summary button and a
window appears showing us the present
materials and their parameters.
We see material A is Linear Elastic with
parameter #1 = 300000 (the Elastic Modulus)
and parameter #2 = 0.33 (the Poissons Ratio).
This is the core material for our yielding coal
properties.

We also see the Elastic Plastic materials for the

yield zones.
For the Elastic Plastic material, Parameter #1 is
the Peak Stress, Parameter #2 is the Peak
Strain and Parameter #3 is the Plastic Modulus.
At the bottom of the page, we see that material
J is the gob material and we see the
parameter values for it.
To get out of the Material Summary, we click
the OK button
and to continue entering parameters, we click
on Next Form

This opens the Program Control

Parameters form. This is the last form for
entering parameters.
The parameters in this form control the
calculation of the stresses and displacements in
the LaM2D program.
In general, the default values will work for the
majority of models and we will use these for our
example.
To finish entering parameters, we click Finish

This brings us back to the main window.

Next we want to graphically enter the material
codes for the seam grid. To do this, we click on:
Edit_Grids=>Edit_Grids from the menu bar,
This opens the Grid Editor window

On initialization of the Grid Editor, all elements are

set to coal A by default.

The Grid Editor dialog can be expanded and element

view can be zoomed (in and out).
The mining layout is edited within the Grid Editor.
Since two sets of material properties are defined (one
for the 1st seam and the other for the 2nd seam), the
two sets of material properties are applied to both
seams as shown below.

Here we see that the entire seam is initialized as solid

coal, we need to show the gob and change the coal
material to gob material. Right now the intended gob
material is letter material code A, but we just
changed the gob material to S in the parameters.
So, we need to edit the grid and change the gob to
S, as shown below.

To change the gob to letter code S, we click on grid

cell col 33 and then drag the mouse to row 48, col 68
highlighting all of the A material. We then type the
letter S and hit Enter. This will change all the
selected cells to S. (See Figure Below)

Once the Gob materials have been entered, lets go

ahead and edit the pillars in the lower seam by
defining the entries as shown below

Once the both seam layouts have been completed,

we can now generate yield zones by clicking the
Apply Yield Zone button. This automatically
generates the yield zones (see Figure below).

This would be a good place to save the working

grid. So, in the main menu bar click on: Grid.

And then click on: Save to save the grids.

Now we can exit the Grid Editor and return to the
main menu.

This would be a good place to save the Model. So, in

the main menu bar click on: File -> Save.

This brings up the Save As dialog box

Here you could decide to give the file which ever

name you want. (Note File Name may be the same
or different from the Model Title).
Type in the Name you want in the File name edit
box and click Save

Once our project has been safely saved, lets go

ahead and solve the model.

To bring up the Model Solution Dialog In the main menu Click : Solve_Model and select
Solve_Model

To solve the model Click: Run

Once the model has been solved, a message is

displayed in the Calculation Phase edit box
indicating the solution has been completed. At this
point Exit the solution dialog and proceed to the Post
Processor.

Now we want to open the Post Processor and

examine the outputs.
In the Main Menu Click: Plot

LaM2D allows three different Plot Types

Model Plot
Comparison Plot
Excel Plot

Lets Start with the Model Plot type: Click on Model

Plot

First time entering the Post Processor, the default plot

will be the convergence plot. In order to plot other
solutions, lets bring up the solution options.
Click View -> Plot Options

This brings up the plot Options Dialog

Here you can choose to plot Vertical stress, Multiple

Seam stress, Horizontal Straine.t.c.
To close the Model Plot Type
Click File -> Exit
The other Plot type allowed in the LaM2D program is
the Comparison Plot type. In the Main Menu
Click View -> Plot Options -> Comparison
Plot

Same as the Model Plot, On the first time of opening

the comparison plot, both plots default to seam 1
convergence plot.
The Comparison Plot type is a Unique plot type
which allows you to simultaneously plot different plot
options in both seams or the same seam.

Lets take a look at the plot option dialog. Follow the

same procedure used in the Model Plot type to bring
up the Comparison plot type Plot Options Dialog.

We can see that the Comparison plot option allows us

to plot any solution output against another in different
seams or the same seam.
Lets plot the Convergence in Seam 1 against the
Vertical stress in seam 2.

This allows us to directly see the influence of one

seam on the other or one solution type on another in
the same seam or different seams.

The third Plot type allowed in the LaM2D program is

the Excel Plot type.

In the Main Menu Click View -> Plot Options ->

Excel Plot
This particular selection automatically starts a
Microsoft Excel application and plots the selected
option.
However, for this plot type to function properly
Microsoft Excel 2002 or later versions must be
running on you computer.

The first excel plot display is a Print Preview

display of the plot. If you close the Print Preview
dialog you will be taken to an excel spreadsheet with
the plot data and the plot attached to the sheet. (See
Figure Below).