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Highlights: What are the main findings? The 3D stress distributions around the gob after mining are numerically calculated. What is the implication of the main finding? The propagations of hydraulic fractures in different disturbed areas caused by mining-induced stress are compared. The influence of the geological conditions that often appear in situ in hydraulic fracturing patterns in a hard roof is examined. A hard roof can cause serious issues corelated with the stability of the panel including large deformation of the roadway in the gob, rock burst, coal and gas outbursts, etc. Currently, hydraulic fracturing has ever-increasingly been used to help control these above-mentioned issues in many engineering cases. This paper presents a series of numerical simulations for hydraulic fracturing with a recently developed model to examine the weakening effect of this pre-conditioning measure on a hard roof. The results show that large deflections in the principal stress direction occur above the coal seam after mining, which can be progressively enhanced as the working face continuously advances. This further could significantly affect the hydraulic fracturing pattern and result in arc-shaped fracture propagation, especially for the hydraulic fracture in stress-descending areas. The obtained results suggest that the hydraulic fracturing operation in a hard roof is preferable in the areas close to the middle of the gob where the created fractures would be deflected more. At last, sensitivity analysis shows that geological conditions have great influence on the hydraulic fracturing pattern. Among the factors analyzed in this paper, the difference between the maximum and minimum stress has the largest influence and should be fully considered. This study could provide a theoretical basis for the practical hydraulic fracturing operation in a hard roof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 110 mining method is a high-efficiency entry-retaining technology without coal pillars or filling materials. At present, there is no precedent for its application in the Huaneng Group. In order to introduce this technology, it is planned to carry out experimental application research in the Yuwang NO.1 Coal Mine of the Huaneng Diandong mining area. The Yuwang NO.1 Coal Mine is a typical coal and gas outburst mine with a coal seam group. In view of the introduction of the 110 mining method under these conditions, first, the geological conditions of the Yuwang NO.1 Coal Mine in the Huaneng Diandong mining area are analyzed, the geological characteristics of the test mining face are summarized, and the practical feasibility of the 110 mining method is analyzed according to the geological characteristics of "one soft, one low, two high, and two complex". Then, according to the engineering experience, calculations, and analysis, the key parameters of roof cutting of the test mining face in the Yuwang NO.1 Coal Mine are obtained, and with the help of a numerical simulation, the roof-cutting height, the roof-cutting angle, and the blasting parameters are numerically simulated and analyzed. The roof-cutting key parameters of the test face are obtained as follows: the roof-cutting depth is 7 m, the roof-cutting angle is 15°, and the blasting method is continuous hole blasting with 500 mm spacing. After that, according to the coal and gas outburst and the occurrence conditions of coal seams in the Yuwang NO.1 Coal Mine, a variety of gob closure design schemes and gob gas drainage design schemes are put forward, and the field effect investigation scheme is given. After the tunnels and open-off cut of the test coal mine's first mining face are connected, under the guidance of the above research results, the field blasting test and the 110 mining method entry-retaining test are further carried out to verify the rationality of the design of the roof-cutting parameters and the feasibility of the gangue wall closure and gas drainage design. Furthermore, in the process of the field practice, continuous research is carried out on the stope pressure law and the adjacent layer gas drainage technology under the 110 mining method, and finally, the 110 mining method application technology system in the Diandong Mining Area is formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal will continue to play an important role in China's economic development and social development in the coming decades. However, due to the complex distribution conditions of coal resources, the mining of coal resources is subject to various restrictions. Coal and gas outburst is an important issue in coal mining, and the threat to the mining of coal resources caused by high gas outburst activity has been receiving more attention. In order to solve the problems related to safe and efficient mining under coal seams with gas outburst, such as mining difficulties, large amounts of work, resource waste, no guaranteed gas treatment time, and low economic efficiency, it is necessary to innovate mining technology and methods for managing gas outburst in coal seams to improve the efficiency of coal mines and to solve the above problems. This study proposes a green mining technical method system known as the "L-H method", which is applicable to the safe and efficient mining of coal seams with gas outburst based on combined theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. The following research results are achieved: (1) The "L-H method" is proposed, and a mining area model of coal seams with gas outburst is established. The specific details of the method and the implementation process are introduced. (2) Examples of H coal mine applications are presented, and the effects of the implementation of the "L-H method" are analyzed and summarized through mine pressure observations from roadways, and it is concluded that the implementation of top-cutting and pressure-relief technology has a good control effect on the roadway-surrounding rock and that gas extraction reaches the national standard of less than 8 m3/t for protrusion prevention; this ensures safety and also achieves efficient mining. This study will provide a good reference for the implementation of green mining methods to similar coal and gas outburst mines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on thermal–fluid–solid coupling law in coal and gas outburst, a multi-physical field numerical analysis model is built for the whole outburst process. The response laws of stress, gas pressure, temperature, and seepage in different areas and different time nodes around coal and rock mass in the coal and gas outburst under high stress condition are discussed. Research results show: Firstly, the stress response law of the coal and rock mass around the burst hole is initial vibration–sudden attenuation–late stability. Secondly, the gas pressure response law in different areas is that the gas pressure response rate decreases gradually with the increase of the distance from the outburst. Thirdly, the adsorbed gas contained in the broken coal near the outburst port is desorbed rapidly and expands to do work, and the temperature changes dramatically after outburst occurs. In contrast, with the increase of stress, the proportion of elastic potential in total coal and gas outburst energy increases, and the proportion of elastic potential is positively correlated with stress. The critical gas pressure under the energy condition of coal and gas outburst decreases with the increase of stress. It illustrates that the lower gas pressure can also meet the energy condition of coal and gas outburst under high stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the process of coal road excavation, various interference signals, induced by environmental noise, drilling, and scraper loader, will affect the risk assessment of coal and gas outburst using acoustic emission (AE) and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) monitoring technology. To distinguish between different interference signals and danger signals, discrete wavelet transform (DWT) was used to decompose and reconstruct signals, and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to obtain the time-frequency plane. The research results show that: (1) interference signals generally exhibit fluctuating changes within small ranges; in comparison, the intensity of AE and EMR signals caused by coal and rock fracture is found to continuously rise for a long period (longer than 2 h). (2) Different interference signals and danger signals differ significantly in their time-frequency plane. (3) Through decomposition and reconstruction of original signal, obvious precursor information can be found in the time-frequency plane of reconstructed signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fully mechanized top-coal caving mining with high mining height, hard roofs and strong mining pressure are popular in the Shendong mining area, China. The occurrence of dynamic disasters, such as rock burst, coal and gas outburst, mine earthquakes and goaf hurricanes during the coal exploitation process under hard roof conditions, pose a threat to the safe production of mines. In this study, the characteristics of overburden fracture in fully mechanized top-coal caving with a hard roof and high mining height are studied, and the technology of advanced weakening by hard roof staged fracturing was proposed. The results show that the hard roof strata collapse in the form of large "cantilever beams", and it is easy to release huge impact kinetic energy, forming impact disasters. After the implementation of advanced hydraulic fracturing, the periodic weighting length decreases by 32.16%, and the length of overhang is reasonably and effectively controlled. Ellipsoidal fracture networks in the mining direction of the vertical working face, horizontal fracture networks perpendicular to the direction of the working face, and near-linear fracture planes dominated by vertical fractures were observed, with the accumulated energy greatly reduced. The effectiveness of innovation technology is validated, and stress transfer, dissipation and dynamic roof disasters were effectively controlled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]