scholarly journals A Numerical Study of Stress Distribution and Fracture Development above a Protective Coal Seam in Longwall Mining

Processes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunlei Zhang ◽  
Lei Yu ◽  
Ruimin Feng ◽  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Guojun Zhang

Coal and gas outbursts are serious safety concerns in the Chinese coal industry. Mining of the upper or lower protective coal seams has been widely used to minimize this problem. This paper presents new findings from longwall mining-induced fractures, stress distribution changes in roof strata, strata movement and gas flow dynamics after the lower protective coal seam is extracted in a deep underground coal mine in Jincheng, China. Two Flac3D models with varying gob loading characteristics as a function of face advance were analyzed to assess the effect of gob behavior on stress relief in the protected coal seam. The gob behavior in the models is incorporated by applying variable force to the floor and roof behind the longwall face to simulate gob loading characteristics in the field. The influence of mining height on the stress-relief in protected coal seam is also incorporated. The stress relief coefficient and relief angle were introduced as two essential parameters to evaluate the stress relief effect in different regions of protected coal seam. The results showed that the rock mass above the protective coal seam can be divided into five zones in the horizontal direction, i.e. pre-mining zone, compression zone, expansion zone, recovery zone and re-compacted zone. The volume expansion or the dilation zone with high gas concentration is the best location to drill boreholes for gas drainage in both the protected coal seam and the protective coal seam. The research results are helpful to understand the gas flow mechanism around the coal seam and guide industry people to optimize borehole layouts in order to eliminate the coal and gas outburst hazard. The gas drainage programs are provided in the final section.


Author(s):  
Rui Wu ◽  
Penghui Zhang ◽  
Pinnaduwa H. S. W. Kulatilake ◽  
Hao Luo ◽  
Qingyuan He

AbstractAt present, non-pillar entry protection in longwall mining is mainly achieved through either the gob-side entry retaining (GER) procedure or the gob-side entry driving (GED) procedure. The GER procedure leads to difficulties in maintaining the roadway in mining both the previous and current panels. A narrow coal pillar about 5–7 m must be left in the GED procedure; therefore, it causes permanent loss of some coal. The gob-side pre-backfill driving (GPD) procedure effectively removes the wasting of coal resources that exists in the GED procedure and finds an alternative way to handle the roadway maintenance problem that exists in the GER procedure. The FLAC3D software was used to numerically investigate the stress and deformation distributions and failure of the rock mass surrounding the previous and current panel roadways during each stage of the GPD procedure which requires "twice excavation and mining". The results show that the stress distribution is slightly asymmetric around the previous panel roadway after the “primary excavation”. The stronger and stiffer backfill compared to the coal turned out to be the main bearing body of the previous panel roadway during the "primary mining". The highest vertical stresses of 32.6 and 23.1 MPa, compared to the in-situ stress of 10.5 MPa, appeared in the backfill wall and coal seam, respectively. After the "primary mining", the peak vertical stress under the coal seam at the floor level was slightly higher (18.1 MPa) than that under the backfill (17.8 MPa). After the "secondary excavation", the peak vertical stress under the coal seam at the floor level was slightly lower (18.7 MPa) than that under the backfill (19.8 MPa); the maximum floor heave and maximum roof sag of the current panel roadway were 252.9 and 322.1 mm, respectively. During the "secondary mining", the stress distribution in the rock mass surrounding the current panel roadway was mainly affected by the superposition of the front abutment pressure from the current panel and the side abutment pressure from the previous panel. The floor heave of the current panel roadway reached a maximum of 321.8 mm at 5 m ahead of the working face; the roof sag increased to 828.4 mm at the working face. The peak abutment pressure appeared alternately in the backfill and the coal seam during the whole procedure of "twice excavation and mining" of the GPD procedure. The backfill provided strong bearing capacity during all stages of the GPD procedure and exhibited reliable support for the roadway. The results provide scientific insight for engineering practice of the GPD procedure.



2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wan-rong Liu

The roof fracture is the main cause of coal mine roof accidents. To analyze the law of movement and caving of the roof rock stratum, the roof subsidence displacement, rock stratum stress, and the rock stratum movement law were analyzed by using the methods of the particle discrete element and similar material simulation test. The results show that (1) as the working face advances, regular movement and subsidence appears in the roof rock strata, and the roof subsidence curve forms a typical “U” shape. As the coal seam continues to advance, the maximum subsidence displacement remains basically constant, and the subsidence displacement curves present an asymmetric flat-bottomed distribution. (2) After the coal seam is mined, the overburden forms an arched shape force chain, and the arched strong chain is the path of the overburden transmission force. The farther away from the coal seam, the smaller the stress concentration coefficient is, but it is still in a high stress area, and the stress concentration position moves toward the middle area of the goaf. The stress concentration in front of the coal wall is the source of force that forms the abutment pressure. (3) Above the coal wall towards the goaf, a stepped fracture was formed in the roof rock stratum. The periodic fracture of the rock stratum is the main cause of the periodic weighting of the working face. Understanding the laws of rock movement and stress distribution is of great significance for guiding engineering practice and preventing the roof accidents.



2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Delong Zou ◽  
Xiang Zhang

When stratified mining is adopted in high-gas and extrathick coal seam, a large amount of pressure-relief gas of the lower layer flows into the upper layer goaf along the cracks in the layer, resulting in upper layer working face to frequently exceed the gas limit. And ordinary drilling can no longer meet the requirements of the pressure-relief gas drainage of the lower layer. The 205 working face of Tingnan Coal Mine is taken as the test background in this paper, and based on the “pressure-relief and flow-increase” effect of the lower layer under the action of mining stress during the upper layer mining, the gas drainage of kilometer directional drilling in lower layer is studied. According to the distribution characteristics of support pressure before and after the working face, the pressure-relief principle, fracture development characteristics, and gas migration law of the lower layered coal body are analyzed in the process of advancing the upper layered working face in the extrathick coal seam with high gas. The maximum depth of goaf damage is calculated theoretically, and the Flac3D numerical simulation of the failure deformation of the 205 working face floor is carried out. It is found that the maximum depth of plastic failure of the lower layer is about 13 m. According to the plastic deformation of the lower layer under different vertical depths and the movement of coal and rock mass, it is determined that the reasonable range of kilometer directional drilling in the lower layer is 6–9 m below the floor vertical depth. From 15 m to 45 m in the two parallel grooves, there is no fracture failure with a sharp increase or decrease in the displacement in the local range. Meanwhile, in this part, the roof falling behind is not easy to compaction, and the displacement of the floor is large, which does not cause plastic damage. The degree of pressure relief is more sufficient, and the permeability of the lower layer is good. Therefore, drilling should be arranged as much as possible along the working face in this tendency range. The determination of reasonable arrangement range of kilometer directional drilling in extrathick coal seam provides reference index and theoretical guidance for industrial test of working face and also provides new ideas for gas control of stratified mining face in high-gas and extrathick coal seam.



Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Kong ◽  
Lishuai Jiang ◽  
Jiaming Shu ◽  
Lu Wang

It is well accepted that faults have significant impacts on the safe production of underground coal mines; however, the fault-slip mechanism during longwall mining through a fault still needs to be investigated. In this study, the distribution of microseismicity events during panel mining through a fault is analyzed, and 3-dimensional fast Lagrangian analysis of continua was used to study the mining stress distribution and fault-slip behavior under the two different mining directions, i.e., mining the panel through the fault from the footwall, or mining the panel through the fault from the hanging wall. The research shows that when the panel is mined through the fault from the footwall, the shear displacement of the fault is significantly greater than those created by mining the panel through the fault from the hanging wall. Under the two mining directions, the variation behaviors of the normal stress and shear stress on the fault are quite different, and fault-slips mainly occur in fault areas where the normal stress decreases. When mining the panel through the fault from the footwall, the slip mainly occurs in the coal-seam roof fault, and when mining the panel through the fault from the hanging wall, the slip mainly occurs in the coal-seam floor fault. According to the variations in the normal stress and shear stress of the fault during the period of mining the panel through the fault, the mechanism of the fault slip can be divided into three categories. 1: Normal stress and shear stress decrease abruptly, but the reduction of the normal stress is greater than that of the shear stress. 2: The normal stress is continuously reduced, the shear strength of the fault is decreased, and the shear stress is suddenly increased. 3: Both the normal stress and the shear stress increase, but the increase in the shear stress is greater than that of the normal stress. These research results can provide a reference for the layout of panels and for fault-slip-induced disaster prevention under similar conditions.



2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Yuan-ping Cheng ◽  
Pin-kun Guo ◽  
Feng-hua An ◽  
Ming-yi Chen


Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Shaodong Li ◽  
Gangwei Fan ◽  
Dongsheng Zhang ◽  
Shizhong Zhang ◽  
Liang Chen ◽  
...  

The high-pressure and water-rich confined aquifer occurring in the Ordovician limestone sequence poses great threats to the routine production of underground longwall mining. Considering the intense cooperation of mining disturbance and water pressure, water-conducting fractures within a coal seam floor can connect the lower aquifer and upper goaf, and this hydraulic behavior is considered the root of water inrush hazard and water loss or contamination. In this paper, the panel 4301 of the Longquan coal mine serves as the case where the panel works closely above the floor with high water pressure. By the combination of physical and numerical modelling approaches, the variation characteristics of fracture development and volumetric strain of floor rocks subjected to mining disturbance are analyzed. A numerical computation model is constructed based on the volumetric strain-permeability equation obtained by curve fitting, and on such basis, the impacts of different mining parameters on floor rock permeability are studied. The results show that the floor rocks experience fracture generation, extension, and convergence procedures as the workface advances along the longitudinal direction, and fractures appearing in front of the workface are more developed. In the whole process of coal seam extraction, the volumetric strain profile exhibits “Λ” shape and an inverted saddle shape before and after overburden strata collapse. By controlling a single variable, the paper reveals that panel height is of greater impact on floor permeability changes than panel length and panel width.



2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 103160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Zhao ◽  
Baiquan Lin ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Jia Kong ◽  
Yuannan Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Gas Flow ◽  


2020 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 01004
Author(s):  
Liangwei Li

Aiming at the difficulty of gas drainage by drilling along the seam in soft coal seam, the permeability of coal seam was increased by hydraulic fracturing test in the field, and the permeability and gas drainage parameters of coal seam before and after fracturing were studied. The results show that: ① The fracture initiation pressure of 3# coal seam in Guojiahe coal mine is 15~20MPa. When the water injection is 30~40m3, the fracturing radius is 15m, when the water injection is 50 ~ 60m3, the fracturing radius can reach 20m, when the water injection reaches 70m3, the fracturing radius can reach 30m; ② Driven by high pressure water, the gas in the fractured area migrates to the unfractured area, and the gas content in the fractured area decreases; ③ The attenuation coefficient of natural gas flow after fracturing is reduced by 50% compared with that before fracturing, and the permeability coefficient of coal seam after fracturing is increased by 50 times compared with that of original area; ④ The recovery concentration after fracturing is much higher than that before fracturing.



10.14311/260 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (4-5) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vacek

This paper deals with to the behaviour of open rock that occurs, for example, during longwall mining in coal mines, in deep tunnel, or shaft excavation.Longwall instability leads to extrusion of rock mass into an open space. This effect is mostly referred to as a bump, or a rock burst. For bumps to occur, the rock has to possess certain particular rock burst properties leading to accumulation of energy and the potential to release this energy. Such materials may be brittle, or the bumps may arise at the interfacial zones of two parts of the rock, that have principally different material properties.The solution is based on experimental and mathematical modelling. These two methods have to allow the problem to be studied on the basis of three presumptions: – the solution must be time dependent – the solution must allow the creation of crack in the rock mass – the solution must allow an extrusion of rock into an open space (bump effect)



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document