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Effective potential energy associated with coal and gas outburst during underground coal mining: case studies for mining safety

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Abstract

Outburst of coal and gas is a major dynamic hazard during coal mining and has to be controlled for reducing mining disaster risk. Despite significant advances made in outburst prediction and control technologies, some fundamental issues remain to be resolved, particularly in understanding the physical mechanism of this phenomenon. Because of the wide variety of conditions under which outbursts occur, there is still no single theory that could explain the phenomenon although a number of hypothesis and theoretical models have been proposed. In this study, energy approach was adopted to explain the process of an outburst. The potential energy in gas-containing coal was analyzed with particular reference to the effective potential energy available and contributing to the process of an outburst. Six real cases of outbursts were investigated of their effective potential energy, and new insights on the outburst mechanism were gained. Results show that the energy of free pore gas in coal and the energy of desorption gas from coal respectively made up 39.7% and 53.7% in the total effective potential energy. In other words, the gas energy played a dominant role in the process of outbursts. This implies that the risk of outbursts could be effectively minimized through reduction in gas energy of gas-containing coal. As gas energy in coal is largely determined by gas content or pressure, the risk of outbursts could therefore be minimized by decreasing gas content or pressure in coal. An energy threshold value of 0.339 MJ/m3 for outburst was also proposed in this study. Outcomes of this study are expected to provide some references on outburst prediction and prevention for improving mining safety level.

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Abbreviations

a :

radius of a spherical particle (m)

A 1 :

work required for fragmentation (MJ)

A 2 :

energy required in moving coal particles (MJ)

C v :

specific heat capacity at constant volume (MJ/(K·mol))

d :

size of coal particle (m)

D :

diffusion coefficient (m2/s)

E :

Young’s modulus of coal (MPa)

E c :

elastic strain energy of coal (MJ/m3)

E g :

gas energy in coal (MJ/m3)

E gd :

energy of desorption gas (MJ/m3)

E gp :

energy of free pore gas (MJ/m3)

f :

frictional coefficient (dimensionless)

g :

gravitational acceleration (m/s2)

G :

energy required to generate additional unit surface area gas mass (MJ)

H :

overburden depth (m)

K 1 :

initial gas desorption index from coal (mL/(min0.5·g))

K R :

fragmentation constant (MJ·m)

m :

coal mass (kg)

M :

gas mass (g)

M ∞ :

total desorption gas (g)

M t :

cumulative gas desorbed at the time t (g)

n :

heat capacity ratio (dimensionless)

P :

gas pressure (MPa)

P 0 :

gas pressure after expansion (MPa)

P 1 :

initial gas pressure (MPa)

P L :

Langmuir pressure (MPa)

P m :

initial pore gas pressure due to gas diffusion from coal micropores (MPa)

Q :

heat from the surroundings (MJ/m3)

S :

distance of coal movement (m)

t :

time (s)

T :

gas temperature (K)

T 0 :

final temperature of gas after expansion (K)

T 1 :

initial temperature of gas (K)

U :

molecular mass of gas (g/mol)

v :

Poisson’s ratio (dimensionless)

V :

gas volume (m3)

V 0 :

final gas volume after gas expansion (m3)

V L :

Langmuir volume (m3)

V m0 :

final volume of desorption gas (m3)

α :

effective stress coefficient (dimensionless)

γ :

density of overburden (kg/m3)

γ i :

percentage of particles of a particular size in the total particles (%)

σ 1 :

maximum principal stress (MPa)

σ 1e :

effective maximum principal stress (MPa)

σ 2 :

intermediate principal stress (MPa)

σ 2e :

effective intermediate principal stress (MPa)

σ 3 :

minimum principal stress (MPa)

σ 3e :

effective minimum principal stress (MPa)

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Funding

The research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51934007, 51904013, 51874009, and 52074012), National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFC0808000), Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, CUMT (No. SKLCRSM20KF003), Youth Science and Technology Talents Support Program (2020) by Anhui Association for Science and Technology (No. RCTJ202005), Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of Explosion Science and Technology (Beijing Institute of Technology) (No. KFJJ20-11M), Anhui University Natural Science Research Project (No. KJ2019A0124), and Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by China Association for Science and Technology (No. 2018QNRC001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Mining Response and Disaster Prevention and Control in Deep Coal Mines, Anhui University of Science & Technology, Huainan, Anhui, 232001, People’s Republic of China

    Sheng Xue, Chunshan Zheng, Bingyou Jiang & Xiaoliang Zheng

  2. School of Energy and Safety Engineering, Anhui University of Science & Technology, Huainan, Anhui, 232001, People’s Republic of China

    Sheng Xue, Chunshan Zheng & Bingyou Jiang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, 221116, People’s Republic of China

    Chunshan Zheng

Authors
  1. Sheng Xue
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  2. Chunshan Zheng
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  3. Bingyou Jiang
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  4. Xiaoliang Zheng
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Correspondence to Chunshan Zheng or Bingyou Jiang.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Murat Karakus

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Xue, S., Zheng, C., Jiang, B. et al. Effective potential energy associated with coal and gas outburst during underground coal mining: case studies for mining safety. Arab J Geosci 14, 1065 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07372-0

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