Search

Mine gas explosions present a serious safety threat in the worldwide coal mining industry. It has been considered the No.1 killer for underground coal mining workers. The formation of an explosive atmosphere involves various factors. Due to complicated stratified geology and the coal production process, geological conditions and coal production process reasons and particular working sections underground present a high risk of an explosion that would most likely cause casualties and property loss. In this study, the basic conditions, propagation law and hazards analysis of gas explosions are reviewed, followed by a review of the typical locations where an explosion would occur. Finally, current technologies used in the mining industry for preventing gas explosions and suppressing the associated dangers were studied. Preventive gas explosion technologies mainly include gas drainage, gas accumulation prevention and gas and fire source monitoring technologies. The technologies often used to control or mitigate gas explosion hazards are usually divided into active and passive, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed and compared. This paper aims to summarise the latest technologies for controlling and suppressing gas explosion and guides mining engineers to design risk mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mine seals in coal mines with a good impact resistance and air tightness are mainly used to isolate abandoned mining areas from active workings. For one thing, it can prevent the leakage of harmful gases, such as toxic gas from abandoned areas. For another, once an underground mine explosion happens, it can effectively block the spread of the explosion between the abandoned mining areas and the active workings. Hence, it is of great significance to study the explosion-proof performance and mechanical properties of the mine seals. First of all, the effect of slotting on the stability of the seals in coal mines under explosion load was explored in this study. By numerical simulations, the mechanical response characteristics of the seals with or without cutting a slot under the explosion load were compared in detail. The results show that slotting improved the stress concentration at the contact surface of surrounding rock by transferring partial impact received by mine seals to the surrounding rocks, thus, to achieve the effect of buffering explosion impact. Besides, such effect will be enhanced with increasing cutting depth into rock, and will stabilize when the depth is 20 cm. On this basis, the mechanical properties and damage of the seals constructed by different materials (standard brick and #C40 concrete) under the explosion load were compared. It was found that once a slot was set, the maximum deformation of the concrete seal was reduced, while the maximum deformation of the brick seal increased. Since the non-deformability of the concrete seal is obviously stronger than that of the brick seal, with the impact resistance stronger than that of the brick seal, the concrete seal is more suitable for slotting. Moreover, the damage of the seals in underground coal mines under the strata ground pressure was studied; the results of which show that the damage state under the ground pressure can be divided into 3 levels, i.e. no damage, minor damage and rapid development of damage. Meanwhile, it was found that the prestressed structure formed by the ground pressure at the level of no damage can enhance the protective effect of the seals in coal mines. However, when the ground pressure was further developed, the seal itself was destroyed and the protective effect was lost. In addition, the influence of roof to floor moving convergence, a deformation parameter of the roadway, on the seals was also investigated. The results show that the ground pressure and roof-to-floor convergence act on the seals in coal mines in the same way, thus roof to floor moving convergence can replace the ground pressure to analyze other related mechanical properties of the seals in coal mines in the future researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]