At present, when the Soviet coal industry has entered a new phase of development, based on the construction of new large mines and increasing the capacity of existing mines, it is of some interest to consider from the point of view of the history of the development of our coal industry existing theoretical views on the method of determining the production capacity of mines.

All known in mining engineering calculation methods of choosing the size of the mine field are based on the desire to ensure the average minimum cost of production for the entire life of the mine and differ among themselves mainly in technique and calculation methodology. A large number of methods are based on a given life of the mine, and in this case, the task of choosing the parameters of the mine field is reduced to determining the relationship between the size of the field along the strike and fall.

In the theory of coal mines design, more than 30 works, mainly performed during the last 30-35 years, are devoted to determining the location of shafts under the conditions of cargo transportation. A large number of engineering, technical and scientific workers were engaged in solving this problem. Some researchers have considerably extended the problem of shaft location determination, including underground and surface coal transportation, delivery of rock, people, equipment, as well as ventilation, top-hole sinking (in case of shafts position outside the suite), losses in pillars, and thus turned it into a typical method of variants solved graphically or by tabular comparison. During the famous discussion on the application of the analytical method in mining conducted by the Mining Journal in 1949, this question also attracted attention. At the same time, some participants of the discussion questioned the correctness of the existing methodology for determining the location of the shaft according to the transportation conditions.

The increase in coal production by open-pit mining envisaged by the Five-Year Plan (122 million tonnes in 1960 against 66 million tonnes in 1955) by rates far exceeds the general growth of coal production in the Soviet Union, and especially from underground work: open-pit coal production increases by 88%, total production by 52%, underground production by about 40%. Such increased rate of development of open-pit works is connected with their well-known advantages, consisting, besides increase of labor productivity and reduction of production costs, in considerable improvement of labor conditions, increase of safety of works and sharp reduction of losses in the subsoil, especially at development of powerful steeply falling seams and veins. Injuries at coal pits are about five times less than in underground mines (reduction of severe and fatal cases is even greater).

Establishing the cost of repair of drifts in mining engineering literature has always been and is paid much attention, as the maintenance of drifts is one of the main items of expenditure of coal mines both in terms of cost and labor intensity. Some establish a mathematical dependence of the cost of repair of drifts, passed (or extinguished) in parallel to the cleaning works, as a function of their length, and others - as a function of conditions, maintenance: the cross-section of the excavation, the characteristic of rocks, proximity-cleaning works, etc. Some of them establish a mathematical dependence of the cost of repair of drifts, passed (or extinguished) in parallel to the cleaning works, as a function of their length.

Natural draught, as is known, is the result of the difference in the weight of the air supplying and discharging air. In accordance with this, the depression of natural draught depends on weight, i.e., on the temperature and air pressure in the outgoing and incoming stream. Moreover, depending on the depression developed by the suction or discharge fan, the air density of the outgoing or incoming jet can vary within significant limits, so that, along with the natural draught formed as a result of heating the air and changing its composition, there is also a natural draught created by the fan and "artificially created natural traction". Currently, in addition to calculation methods, a number of methods are known to directly measure the depression of the natural draught of an existing mine. These methods are associated with changing the ventilation regime of the mine. By blocking the entire air stream with a jumper, you can directly measure the depression of natural draught with a micromanometer, connecting it to both sides of the jumper.