Regional gas drainage techniques in Chinese coal mines

China's rapid economic development has increased the demand for coal.These results in Chinese coal mines being extended to deeper levels.The eastern Chinese,more economical developed,regions have a long history of coal mining and many coal mines have now started deep mining at a depth from 800 to 1500 m.This increase in mining depth,geostresses,pressures,and gas content of the coal seam complicates geologic construction conditions.Lower permeability and softer coal contribute to increasing numbers of coal and gas outburst,and gas explosion,disasters.A search on effective methods of preventing gas disasters has been provided funds from the Chinese government since 1998.The National Engineering Research Center of Coal Gas Control and the Huainan and Huaibei Mining Group have conducted theoretical and experimental research on a regional gas extraction technology.The results included two important findings.First,grouped coal seams allow adoption of a method where a first,key protective layer is mined to protect upper and lower coal seams by increasing permeability from 400 to 3000 times.Desorption of gas and gas extraction in the protected coal seam of up to 60%,or more,may be achieved in this way.Second,a single seam may be protected by using a dense network of extraction boreholes consisting of cross and along-bed holes.Combined with this is increased use of water that increases extraction of coal seam gas by up to 50%.Engineering practice showed that regional gas drainage technology eliminates regional coal and gas outburst and also enables mining under low gas conditions.These research results have been adopted into the national safety codes of production technology.This paper systematically introduces the principles of the technology,the engineering methods and techniques,and the parameters of regional gas drainage.Engineering applications are discussed.

Key technologies and engineering practices for soft-rock protective seam mining

Severe gas disasters in deep mining areas are increasing,and traditional protective coal seam mining is facing significant challenges.This paper proposes an innovative technology using soft rock as the protective seam in the absence of an appropriate coal seam.Based on the geological engineering conditions of the new horizontal first mining area of Luling Coal Mine in Huaibei,China,the impacts of different mining parameters of the soft-rock protective seam on the pressure-relief effect of the protected coal seam were analyzed through numerical simulation.The unit stress of the protected coal seam,which was less than half of the primary rock stress,was used as the mining stress pressure-relief index.The optimized interlayer space was found to be 59 m for the first soft-rock working face,with a 2 m mining thickness and 105 m face length.The physicochemical characteristics of the orebody were analyzed,and a device selection framework for the soft-rock protective seam was developed.Optimal equipment for the working face was selected,including the fully-mechanized hydraulic support and coal cutter.A production technology that combined fully-mechanized and blasting-assisted soft-rock mining was developed.Engineering practices demonstrated that normal circulation operation can be achieved on the working face of the soft-rock protective seam,with an average advancement rate of 1.64 m/d.The maximum residual gas pressure and content,which were measured at the cut hole position of the protected coal seams(Nos.8 and 9),decreased to 0.35 MPa and 4.87 m^3/t,respectively.The results suggested that soft-rock protective seam mining can produce a significant gas-control effect.

A Study on the Dynamic Adjustment of Pressure Relief Gas Drainage Drilling in Mined-Out Areas

With the development of coal mine equipment mechanization, the wide application of “hole instead of roadway” technology greatly reduces the cost of gas control engineering, but puts forward higher requirements for the effect of gas drainage. At present, the drainage effect of coal mine inspection boreholes is mainly evaluated by the drilling field, but the flow rate and gas concentration of each borehole in the drilling field are not the same, which causes the gas drainage effect not to be correctly mastered. In the present study, the pressure relief drilling in the goaf of the working face of a typical multi-coal seam group high gas outburst mining area was taken as the research object. Through the newly developed portable drilling inspection device, the pure amount of drilling drainage was investigated, and the drilling design was dynamically adjusted. The enhancement of the goaf pressure relief gas control effect ensures the gas safety of the mining face. At the same time, this improves the gas extraction rate and reduces the emission of greenhouse gases. If the data from the borehole investigation can be transmitted in real time and analyzed in big data, the optimal extraction negative pressure can be predicted through a regression algorithm. Under the control of the negative pressure of each borehole by the actuator, the extraction system can have the function of intelligent judgment.