Method and an apparatus for producing fabric-reinforced lining supports or slender supporting structural units

A method for producing a fabric-reinforced support, in particular in mines and tunnel construction, consisting of a hardening building material and a reinforcement comprising the steps of;

• stretching a fabric tube closed at both ends generally vertically between a floor and roof of an underground chamber;
• surrounding a portion of the fabric tube between its ends with a perforated rigid shell casing;
• positioning at least one plate within the fabric tube adjacent a closed upper end thereof;
• inserting a plurality of needles radially through the fabric tube for supporting the plate on an upper end of the shell casing;
• filling the fabric tube with pressurized liquid building material;
• filtering the liquid building material through the fabric tube which removes the water of the liquid building material to the outside of the fabric tube and retains the drained solids of the liquid building material on the inside of the fabric tube in the form of a pillar that quickly hardens from bottom to top, with the fabric tube serving as a self-supporting outer reinforcement for the hardened pillar;
• draining water from the liquid building material removed from the fabric tube through perforations in the shell casing;
• removing the shell casing from about the fabric tube before the building material hardens.

A partially completed underground prop pillar assembly comprises:

• a fabric tube which is closed at both ends;
• a generally cylindrical and perforated rigid shell casing surrounding a first portion of the fabric tube between its closed ends, the shell casing having open ends and extending generally vertically between opposed floor and roof surfaces of an underground chamber, and having at least one end of the shell casing spaced from its respective floor or roof surface so that a second portion of the fabric tube is unsurrounded by the shell casing;
• and
• a mass of pressurized liquid building material which has been introduced into the fabric tube to fill the tube so that the surrounded first portion thereof expands radially to abut the shell casing, the closed ends thereof expand longitudinally to abut the opposed surfaces of the floor and roof and the unsurrounded second portion of the fabric tube bulges radially outwardly beyond the circumference of the shell casing, which thereby defines a prop pillar which, upon hardening of the building material and removal of the shell casing, is self-supporting and reinforced by the fabric tube.