Study on Mechanism of Water Inrush of Karst Tunnels

Water inrush,which is one of the challenging issues and hot topics in the tunneling industry,is very easy to occur during the construction of karst tunnels.The mechanism of water inrush of karst tunnels is discussed and analyzed in the paper:the water inrush of karst tunnels is generally divided into three steps,i.e.,the forming of the hazard source,the forming of the water inrush passage and the failure of the anti-inrush rock mass.The failure of the anti-inrush rock mass of karst tunnels are classified into 5 types,i.e.,the integral tensile-shear failure,the hydraulic fracturing,the infiltration induced sliding of the filling medium,the loss of key blocks and the comprehensive water inrush mode.The failure mechanism is studied on basis of typical cases and by means of numerical simulation or theoretical analysis.Conclusion is drawn that most of the water inrushes in actual tunneling are comprehensive water inrushes,which are the comprehensive results of the interrelation and interaction of various water inrush types,and that different types of water inrushes have related continuity and progressive evolution relationships under certain conditions.

Identification of Mine Water Inrush Source Based on PCA-BP Neural Network

It is of great significance to analyze the chemical indexes of mine water and develop a rapid identification system of water source, which can quickly and accurately distinguish the causes of water inrush and identify the source of water inrush, so as to reduce casualties and economic losses and prevent and control water inrush disasters. Taking Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ + K+, , , Cl-, pH value and TDS as discriminant indexes, the principal component analysis method was used to reduce the dimension of data, and the identification model of mine water inrush source based on PCA-BP neural network was established. 96 sets of data of different aquifers in Panxie mining area were selected for prediction analysis, and 20 sets of randomly selected data were tested, with an accuracy rate of 95%. The model can effectively reduce data redundancy, has a high recognition rate, and can accurately and quickly identify the water source of mine water inrush.

Mechanical model of water inrush from coal seam floor based on triaxial seepage experiments

In order to study the mechanism of confined water inrush from coal seam floor,the main influences on permeability in the process of triaxial seepage experiments were analyzed with methods such as laboratory experiments,theoretical analysis and mechanical model calculation.The crack extension rule and the ultimate destruction form of the rock specimens were obtained.The mechanism of water inrush was explained reasonably from mechanical point of view.The practical criterion of water inrush was put forward.The results show that the rock permeability "mutation" phenomenon reflects the differences of stress state and cracks extension rate when the rock internal crack begins to extend in large-scale.The rock ultimate destruction form is related to the rock lithology and the angle between crack and principal stress.The necessary condition of floor water inrush is that the mining pressure leads to the extension and transfixion of the crack.The sufficient condition of floor water inrush is that the confined water’s expansionary stress in normal direction and shear stress in tangential direction must be larger than the internal stress in the crack.With the two conditions satisfied at the same time,the floor water inrush accident will occur.

Hydrogeochemical Characteristics and Groundwater Inrush Source Identification for a Multi-aquifer System in a Coal Mine

Correct identification of water inrush sources is particularly important to prevent and control mine water disasters.Hydrochemical analysis,Fisher discriminant analysis,and geothermal verification analysis were used to identify and verify the water sources of the multi-aquifer groundwater system in Gubei coal mine,Anhui Province,North China.Results show that hydrochemical water types of the Cenozoic top aquifer included HCO3-Na+K-Ca,HCO3-Na+K-Mg and HCO3-Na+K,and this aquifer was easily distinguishable from other aquifers because of its low concentration of Na++K+and Cl-.The Cenozoic middle and bottom aquifers,the Permian fissure aquifer,and the Taiyuan and Ordovician limestone aquifers were mainly characterized by the Cl-Na+K and SO4-Cl-Na+K or HCO3-Cl-Na+K water types,and their hydrogeochemistries were similar.Therefore,water sources could not be identified via hydrochemical analysis.Fisher model was established based on the hydrogeochemical characteristics,and its discrimination rate was 89.19%.Fisher discrimination results were improved by combining them with the geothermal analysis results,and this combination increased the identification rate to 97.3%and reasonably explained the reasons behind two water samples misjudgments.The methods described herein are also applicable to other mines with similar geological and hydrogeological conditions in North China.

Experimental study on the flow behaviour of water-sand mixtures in fractured rock specimens

The study of flow behaviour of water-sand mixtures in fractured rocks is of great necessity to understand the producing mechanism and prevention of water inrush and sand gushing accidents.A self-developed seepage test system is used in this paper to conduct laboratory experiments in order to study the influence of the particle size distribution,the void ratio,and the initial mass of Aeolian sand on the flow behavior.It is concluded that the water flow velocity is insensitive to the initial mass of the Aeolian sand but increases with the power exponent in the Talbot formula and the specimen height.The outflow of the Aeolian sand increases with the power exponent in the Talbot formula,the specimen height,and the initial mass of the Aeolian sand.Besides,the outflow of the Aeolian sand changes exponentially with the water flow velocity.Finally,it is found that the fractured specimen has a maximum sand filtration capacity beyond which the outflow of the Aeolian sand significantly increases with the initial mass of the Aeolian sand.

Roof pre-blasting to prevent support crushing and water inrush accidents

Support crushing and water inrush when mining under an unconsolidated confined aquifer in the Qidong Coal Mine was prevented by roof pre-blasting. The mechanism and applicable conditions for this method have been studied. The results show that when an overburden structure that may cause support crushing and a water inrush accident exists the weakening of the primary key stratum, which thereby reduces its weighting step, roof pre-blasting is both feasible and effective. If the position of the primary key stratum can be moved upward to exceed 10 times the mining height the possibility of support crushing and water inrush disaster caused by key stratum compound breakage will be lowered. The overburden structure of the number 7121 working face was considered during the design of a technical proposal involving roof pre-blasting. After comprehensively analyzing the applicability of roof pre-blasting the resulting design prevented support crushing and water inrush disasters from happening at the number 7121 working face and laid a solid foundation for mining safely.

Numerical analysis of water inrush from working-face floor during mining

Confined water in the Ordovician limestone is one of the hidden troubles that threaten safe production of mines in north China. A numerical model of the key strata was developed. It included the structural characteristics and mechanical properties of the floor rock at the working face of a particular coal mine. The model was used to predict failure modes and to help establish rules for safe mining above the aquifer. The distribution of deformation, failure and seepage was simulated by using Dilian Mechsoft's Real- istic Failure Process Analysis (RFPA2D) program. The stress distribution, the deformation and the flow vectors were also obtained. The results indicate that: 1) The original balance of the stress and seepage fields is disturbed due to coal mining; and 2) As the working face advances different deformation, or failure, appears in the surrounding rocks, the water-resisting strata in floor may be destroyed and the passage of water from the aquifer into the mine may occur. The combined action of mining stress and water pressure ultimately lead to water inrush from the floor.

Risk assessment model of tunnel water inrush based on improved attribute mathematical theory

Tunnel water inrush is one of the common geological disasters in the underground engineering construction.In order to effectively evaluate and control the occurrence of water inrush,the risk assessment model of tunnel water inrush was proposed based on improved attribute mathematical theory.The trigonometric functions were adopted to optimize the attribute mathematical theory,avoiding the influence of mutation points and linear variation zones in traditional linear measurement functions on the accuracy of the model.Based on comprehensive analysis of various factors,five parameters were selected as the evaluation indicators for the model,including tunnel head pressure,permeability coefficient of surrounding rock,crushing degree of surrounding rock,relative angle of joint plane and tunnel section size,under the principle of dimension rationality,independence,directness and quantification.The indicator classifications were determined.The links among measured data were analyzed in detail,and the objective weight of each indicator was determined by using similar weight method.Thereby the tunnel water inrush risk assessment model is established and applied in four target segments of two different tunnels in engineering.The evaluation results and the actual excavation data agree well,which indicates that the model is of high credibility and feasibility.

Forecasting water disaster for a coal mine under the Xiaolangdi reservoir

Xin’an coal mine, Henan Province, faces the risk of water inrush because 40% of the area of the coal mine is under the surface water of the Xiaolangdi reservoir. To forecast water disaster, an effective aquifuge and a limit of water infiltration were determined by rock-phase analysis and long term observations of surface water and groundwater. By field monitoring, as well as physical and numerical simulation experiments, we obtained data reflecting different heights of a water flow fractured zone (WFFZ) under different mining conditions, derived a formula to calculate this height and built a forecasting model with the aid of GIS. On the basis of these activities, the coal mine area was classified into three sub-areas with different potential of water inrush. In the end, our research results have been applied in and verified by industrial mining experiments at three working faces and we were able to present a successful example of coal mining under a large reservoir.

Detection and treatment of water inflow in karst tunnel：A case study in Daba tunnel

In a karst tunnel, fissures or cracks that are filled with weathered materials are a type of potential water outlet as they are easily triggered and converted into groundwater outlets under the influence of high groundwater pressure. A terrible water inrush caused by potential water outlets can seriously hinder the project construction. Potential water outlets and water sources that surrounding the tunnel must be detected before water inflow can be treated. This paper provides a successful case of the detection and treatment of water inflow in a karst tunnel and proposes a potential water outlet detection(PWOD) method in which heavy rainfall(>50 mm/d) is considered a trigger for a potential water outlet. The Daba tunnel located in Hunan province, China, has been constructed in a karst stratum where the rock mass has been weathered intensely by the influence of two faults. Heavy rain triggered some potential water outlets, causing a serious water inrush. The PWOD method was applied in this project for the treatment of water inflow, and six potential water outlets in total were identified through three heavy rains. Meanwhile, a geophysical prospecting technique was also used to detect water sources. The connections between water outlets and water sources were identified with a 3-D graphic that included all of them. According to the distribution of water outlets and water sources, the detection area was divided into three sections and separately treated by curtain grouting.

Super-absorbent swellable polymer as grouting material for treatment of karst water inrush

Grouting is the most commonly used method to control water inrush in underground engineering.Traditional cement-based materials are easy to dilute and hard to coagulate under the influence of large flow and high-velocity water inrush.To address these deficiencies,a new type of polymer grouting material with an excellent expansion ratio was synthesised.The material quickly absorbs water and has an expansion ratio of 1:300.The material is composed of a superabsorbent polymer(SAP),glycerol,and ethanol.The effects of water quality on the expansion ratio and expansion rate of the material were examined,and the best solid–liquid ratio for the slurry was determined by fluidity measurements.A karst specially designed pipeline water inrush test device showed that 800 g of SAP can achieve 0.6 m/s water flow blockage in the smooth pipeline,demonstrating that the ability of the SAP slurry to block water inrush is superior to those of other materials.This study provides a reference for water inrush plugging,and has important implications for the reduction and control of karst pipeline-type water inrush disasters,ensuring the safety of construction sites and preventing loss of life and damage to property.

A state‑of‑the‑art review on rock seepage mechanism of water inrush disaster in coal mines

Water inrush is one of the most dangerous disasters in coal mining.Due to the large-scale mining and complicated hydrogeological conditions,thousands of deaths and huge economic losses have been caused by water inrush disasters in China.There are two main factors determining the occurrence of water inrush:water source and water-conducting pathway.Research on the formation mechanism of the water-conducting pathway is the main direction to prevent and control the water inrush,and the seepage mechanism of rock mass during the formation of the water-conducting pathway is the key for the research on the water inrush mechanism.This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of seepage mechanisms during water inrush from three aspects,i.e.,mechanisms of stress-seepage coupling,fow regime transformation and rock erosion.Through numerical methods and experimental analysis,the evolution law of stress and seepage felds in the process of water inrush is fully studied;the fuid movement characteristics under diferent fow regimes are clearly summarized;the law of particle initiation and migration in the process of water inrush is explored,and the efect of rock erosion on hydraulic and mechanical properties of the rock media is also studied.Finally,some limitations of current research are analyzed,and the suggestions for future research on water inrush are proposed in this review.

Risk assessment of floor water inrush in coal mines based on MFIM-TOPSIS variable weight model

Floor water inrush is one of the main types of coal mine water hazards.With the development of deep mining,the prediction and evaluation of floor water inrush is particularly significant.This paper proposes a variable weight model,which combines a multi-factor interaction matrix(MFIM)and the technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution(TOPSIS)to implement the risk assessment of floor water inrush in coal mines.Based on the MFIM,the interaction between seven evaluation indices,including the confined water pressure,water supply condition and aquifer water yield property,floor aquifuge thickness,fault water transmitting ability,fracture development degree,mining depth and thickness and their influence on floor water inrush were considered.After calculating the constant weights,the active degree evaluation was used to assign a variable weight to the indices.The values of the middle layer and final risk level were obtained by TOPSIS.The presented model was successfully applied in the 9901 working face in the Taoyang Mine and four additional coal mines and the results were highly consistent with the engineering situations.Compared with the existing nonlinear evaluation methods,the proposed model had advantages in terms of the weighting,principle explanation,and algorithm structure.

Catastrophe theory-based risk evaluation model for water and mud inrush and its application in karst tunnels

This paper presents a risk evaluation model of water and mud inrush for tunnel excavation in karst areas.The factors affecting the probabilities of water and mud inrush in karst tunnels are investigated to define the dangerousness of this geological disaster.The losses that are caused by water and mud inrush are taken into consideration to account for its harmfulness.Then a risk evaluation model based on the dangerousness-harmfulness evaluation indicator system is constructed,which is more convincing in comparison with the traditional methods.The catastrophe theory is used to evaluate the risk level of water and mud inrush and it has great advantage in handling problems involving discontinuous catastrophe processes.To validate the proposed approach,the Qiyueshan tunnel of Yichang-Wanzhou Railway is taken as an example in which four target segments are evaluated using the risk evaluation model.Finally,the evaluation results are compared with the excavation data,which shows that the risk levels predicted by the proposed approach are in good agreements with that observed in engineering.In conclusion,the catastrophe theory-based risk evaluation model is an efficient and effective approach for water and mud inrush in karst tunnels.

Predicting the height of water-flow fractured zone during coal mining under the Xiaolangdi Reservoir

It is very important to determine the extent of the fractured zone through which water can flow before coal mining under the water bodies.This paper deals with methods to obtain information about overburden rock failure and the development of the fractured zone while coal mining in Xin'an Coal Mine.The risk of water inrush in this mine is great because 40%of the mining area is under the Xiaolangdi reservoir.Numerical simulations combined with geophysical methods were used in this paper to obtain the development law of the fractured zone under different mining conditions.The comprehensive geophysical method described in this paper has been demonstrated to accurately predict the height of the water-flow fractured zone.Results from the new model, which created from the results of numerical simulations and field measurements,were successfully used for making decisions in the Xin'an Coal Mine when mining under the Xiaolangdi Reservoir.Industrial scale experiments at the number 11201,14141 and 14191 working faces were safely carried out.These achievements provide a successful background for the evaluation and application of coal mining under large reservoirs.

Construction of multi-factor identification model for real-time monitoring and early warning of mine water inrush

As a new technical means that can detect abnormal signs of water inrush in advance and give an early warning,the automatic monitoring and early warning of water inrush in mines has been widely valued in recent years.Due to the many factors affecting water inrush and the complicated water inrush mechanism,many factors close to water inrush may have precursory abnormal changes.At present,the existing monitoring and early warning system mainly uses a few monitoring indicators such as groundwater level,water influx,and temperature,and performs water inrush early warning through the abnormal change of a single factor.However,there are relatively few multi-factor comprehensive early warning identification models.Based on the analysis of the abnormal changes of precursor factors in multiple water inrush cases,11 measurable and effective indicators including groundwater flow field,hydrochemical field and temperature field are proposed.Finally,taking Hengyuan coal mine as an example,6 indicators with long-term monitoring data sequences were selected to establish a single-index hierarchical early-warning recognition model,a multi-factor linear recognition model,and a comprehensive intelligent early-warning recognition model.The results show that the correct rate of early warning can reach 95.2%.

Risk assessment of water inrush in tunnels based on attribute interval recognition theory

Water inrush is one of the most serious geological hazards in underground engineering construction.In order to effectively prevent and control the occurrence of water inrush,a new attribute interval recognition theory and method is proposed to systematically evaluate the risk of water inrush in karst tunnels.Its innovation mainly includes that the value of evaluation index is an interval rather than a certain value;the single-index attribute evaluation model is improved non-linearly based on the idea of normal distribution;the synthetic attribute interval analysis method based on improved intuitionistic fuzzy theory is proposed.The TFN-AHP method is proposed to analyze the weight of evaluation index.By analyzing geological factors and engineering factors in tunnel zone,a multi-grade hierarchical index system for tunnel water inrush risk assessment is established.The proposed method is applied to ventilation incline of Xiakou tunnel,and its rationality and practicability is verified by comparison with field situation and evaluation results of other methods.In addition,the results evaluated by this method,which considers that water inrush is a complex non-linear system and the geological conditions have spatial variability,are more accurate and reliable.And it has good applicability in solving the problem of certain and uncertain problem.

Numerical simulation of dewatering thick unconsolidated aquifers for safety of underground coal mining

With an increase of mining the upper limits under unconsolidated aquifers, dewatering of the bottom aquifer of the Quaternary system has become a major method to avoid water and sand inrushes.In the 8th District of the Taiping Coal Mine in south-western Shandong province, the bottom aquifer of the Quaternary system is moderate to excellent in water-yielding capacity.The base rock above the coal seam is very thin in the concealed coal field of the Carboniferous and Permian systems.Therefore, a comprehensive dewatering plan from both the ground surface and the panel was proposed to lower the groundwater level in order to ensure mining safety.According to the hydrogeologic conditions of the 8th District, we established a numerical model so that we could simulate the groundwater flow in the dewatering process.We obtained the simulation parameters from previous data using backward modeling, such as the average coefficient of permeability of 12 m/d and the elastic storage coefficient of 0.002.From the same model, we predicted the movement of groundwater and water level variables and obtained the visible effect of the dewatering project.Despite the overburden failure during mining, no water and/or sand inrush occurred because the groundwater level in the bottom aquifer was lowered to a safe water level.

MECHANISM ON PROGRESSIVE INTRUSION OF PRESSURE WATER UNDER COAL SEAMS INTO PROTECTIVE AQUICLUDE AND ITS APPLICATION IN PREDICTION OF WATER INRUSH

This article proposes a water inrush mechanism of progressive intrusion of pressure water up into the coal floor aquiclude according to injection tests and observations. A numerical model and a criterion of water inrush are established based on the mechanism. The theory is succesSfully used in predictions of water inrush.

An early warning method for water inrush in Dongjiahe coal mine based on microseismic moment tensor

Dongjiahe Coal Mine belongs to the Carboniferous Permian coal field which has a high degree of karst and fissure development.This paper takes the working face of Dongjiahe Coal Mine as an example;through the microseismic(MS)monitoring system arranged on the working face,the moment tensor theory was used to invert the focal mechanism solution of the anomalous area of the floor MS event;combining the numerical simulation and field data,the underlying floor faults were identified by the stress inversion method.The results show that:1)Moment tensors were decomposed into three components and the main type of rupture in this area is mixed failure according to the relative criterion;2)The hidden fault belongs to the reversed fault,its dip angle is approximately 70°,and the rupture length is 21 m determined by the inversion method of the initial dynamic polarity and stress in the focal mechanism;3)The failure process of the fault is divided into three stages by numerical simulation method combined with the temporal and spatial distribution of MS events.The results can provide a reference for early warning and evaluation of similar coal mine water inrush risks.