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Coalbed methane (CBM) is a clean energy source, but its utilization is inefficient due to the complexity and low accuracy of its emission prediction model. In this research, we constructed a mathematical model of gas emission from the excavation workface, and combined the experimental results to propose a new model for accurate and concise prediction. The new model was validated in the field workface and compared with the traditional prediction model. Moreover, the sensitivity of gas emission parameters and the participation ratio of gas emission sources were analyzed. The study results show that the new model has higher calculation accuracy than the old model prediction, with an average error reduction of 4.693%. In the excavation workface, the coal fall gas emission conforms to the negative power function equation, and the coal wall gas emission conforms to the negative exponential function equation. In the early stage of excavation, the proportion of coal fall gas emission is higher than that of coal wall gas emission, and the peak proportion reaches 58.5%. In the later stage, the proportion of coal fall gas emission gradually decreases to below 30%. The order of the sensitivity of gas emission parameters is coal wall gas initial velocity > coal fall gas decay coefficient > coal fall gas initial velocity > coal wall gas decay coefficient. The new model is successfully applied in engineering, which helps to improve the efficiency of coal mine gas disaster control and utilization., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The characteristics of coal desorption strain play a crucial role in coal permeability, coalbed methane (CBM) recovery, and the prevention of outbursts. This study developed an improved thermomechanical diffusion–seepage (TMDS) coupling model to investigate the strain evolution during the gas desorption process in coal. The model considers the time-varying diffusion coefficient, the Klinkenberg permeability effect, and the impact of moisture on adsorption, amending the traditional coal deformation equation and coal permeability model. Utilizing this model, the study explored the mechanism, contribution, and spatiotemporal evolution of desorption strain, while analyzing quantitatively the effects of gas types and TMDS parameters on the dynamics of desorption strain. The results demonstrate that desorption strain consists of fracture pressure, matrix pressure, desorption action, and temperature effects, with desorption action being the predominant factor. The impact of gas type, especially CO2, on desorption strain is significant, with CO2 enhancing CH4 desorption strain more than N2. Additionally, the study explored the sensitivity of desorption strain to TMDS parameters, revealing that gas pressure, permeability, and Langmuir pressure significantly impact desorption strain. Desorption strain can serve as an indicator for predicting and evaluating the risk of outbursts, and the injection of low-temperature liquid nitrogen could help reduce this risk. This research provides insights for further understanding the desorption mechanism in gas-bearing coal, improving CBM recovery, and preventing disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The content of coalbed methane (CBM) is an important parameter that affects the performance of coal extraction and the safety of coal mines. The importance of this parameter is especially more pronounced when using the direct method to determine CBM content, in which the measuring accuracy of the lost gas affects the results. The loss is affected by the gas pressure and exposure time. In this article, the influence of gas pressure and exposure time on the estimation results and loss rate was investigated. Moreover, the influence of the sampling interval and observation time on the accuracy of the kinetic model in simulating the desorption process was analyzed. The obtained results demonstrated that the lost gas is positively associated with pressure and exposure time, and the lost gas rate is proportional to the exposure time. It was found that although the Barrer method outperforms the power function method, in terms of calculation accuracy, both methods have large errors. In terms of physical sense and model accuracy, the pore diffusion (IDM) model best fits the desorption kinetics of this coal. In the stable desorption stage, the desorption process is more consistent with Henry's law. When the desorption changes violently, the desorption process is more consistent with Fick's diffusion law. In order to ensure the consistency between the model and the experiment (95% confidence interval), the sampling interval of IDM model at 1 MPa should be more than 30 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gas drainage technology is closely related to the flow of methane in coal. Desorption and diffusion of gas in coal is an important basic research area, and particle size is one of the influencing factors. In this study, the desorption and diffusion characteristics of coal samples mixed with different particle sizes over time were measured under constant temperature and pressure. The results show that in the initial stage, the desorption volume and desorption rate of coal samples are relatively large. The improved desorption model can well fit the data and the order of desorption volume is negatively correlated to the mean particle size of coal samples. The single small particle coal sample has the largest desorption volume which reached 3.77ml/g. Both the unipore model and the constructed unsteady dynamic diffusion model can well describe the diffusion of gas in coal, the diffusion coefficient of coal sample decreases with time, and the decay rate decreases gradually with time until it remains unchanged. The calculation results of the two models show that the diffusion coefficient ranges of gas in coal between 10−10m2/s and 10−12m2/s. For single-particle coal samples, the diffusion coefficient is positively correlated with particle size. The diffusion coefficient D is affected by the particle size and the degree of compaction between coal particles. These observations indicate that coal samples with different particle sizes will affect the desorption and diffusion of gas, and it has a positive impact on methane recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water-based fracturing fluid is a key component in coal bed methane (CBM) extraction, which is a promising way forward for the green extraction of methane. The adsorption by coal is highly affected by tiny particles in the fracturing fluid. Aiming at exploring the effect of mixing non-adsorbent particles into coal on the adsorption, an atmospheric pressure granulated coal adsorption system with a flow meter was designed to perform tests. During the experiments, the effect of coal particle size, coal mass, and addition of tiny granules on adsorption was analyzed. The obtained results show that the addition of iron powder reduces the adsorption capacity and average adsorption rate of granular coal, and makes the adsorption speed peak earlier. It is found that the change in the adsorption amount has a weak positive correlation with the coal particle size, and the change of the average adsorption rate has a weak positive correlation with the size. However, in the absence of iron powder, the average adsorption rate is negatively correlated with the coal size, and the effect of the coal mass on the average adsorption rate and adsorption capacity is very weak. In large granular coal, the adsorption capacity is independent of size. Under the experimental conditions, strong adsorption occurred between 500 and 1750 s, and the adsorption kinetic process showed a slow-fast-slow "S"- curved distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining disasters such as coal and gas outbursts and rock bursts seriously threaten safe coal mining. Accordingly, it is important to analyze the dynamic damage characteristics of gas-bearing coal and achieve safe coal mining. In the present study, the criterion of crack arrest for gas-bearing coal was set in accordance with the theory of gas dynamics and fracture mechanics. Then, the impact failure characteristics of gas-bearing coal subjected to an impact load were investigated. In this regard, different parameters, including the impact energy, gas pressure, and gas type, were considered. Moreover, the transient effect of the free gas on the coal destruction was analyzed. The influence of free gas-induced damage on the coal structure was also simulated using ANSYS 17.0 software. The obtained results show that, during the impact crushing of gas-bearing coal, the gas moves in the coal body, which tears the coal body and increases the crushing effect of coal. The crushing effect of gas-bearing coal has a linear correlation with gas pressure, impact energy, and gas adsorption strength. It was concluded that the proposed crack arrest criterion and numerical methods are powerful measures for analyzing the failure characteristics of gas-bearing coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal and gas outbursts are complex dynamic phenomena and are highly hazardous. This article established an experimental system to research the damaging effect of gas on particulate coal during coal and gas outbursts, which replicated the outburst scenario by instantaneously releasing different-pressure gas. The results show that the higher the gas pressure is, the larger the new surface area is, and the gas damages the pulverized coal more drastically. The mass ratio of new granular size coal is between 8–27%. The surface area increased significantly (73.0%-245.2%). The mean order of increasing surface area is SC (1.102 m2)> DC (0.9875 m2)> SN (0.8999 m2)> DN (0.8369 m2), which indicates that the extent to which gas destroys particulate coal is inversely proportional to the solidity coefficient and positively proportional to the adsorptivity. The ability of weakly adsorbable gases to break particulate coal is more affected by gas pressure. The degree of breakage of low-firmness coals is more responsive to gas pressure. The percentage of coal mass broken by gas is positively correlated with gas pressure and adsorptivity and negatively correlated with the firmness coefficient. Finally, the quick release of gas occurs in three stages: an acceleration section (0–0.05 s), a high-speed section (0.05–0.15 s), and a deceleration section (after 0.15 s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal is a complex porous medium. When gas exists in the coal body, the fissure structure of coal and the occurrence of gas adsorption make the stress state of gas-bearing coal different from that of ordinary coal. Therefore, the stress state of gas-bearing coal cannot be accurately described by the Terzaghi effective stress, which ignores the effects of crack deformation and methane. To improve the accuracy of gas-bearing coal analysis, this study considered the corrosive effect of free gas and adsorbed gas and the crack closure effect to establish a novel statistical damage constitutive model with consideration to the combined effects of free gas, adsorbed gas, and coal cracking. The established model was used to elucidate the effects of gas-bearing coal on the coal's mechanical deformation and damage characteristics under different stress conditions. The model was validated through full stress–strain experiments on gas-bearing coal under different axial pressure and gas pressure. The results obtained by the proposed statistical damage constitutive model can better describe the stress state of the gas-bearing coal, particularly in the initial stage of void compaction, and are in good agreement with the experimental data. The proposed model provides the theoretical foundation for future studies on the characteristic mechanism of gas-bearing coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: As a form of energy dissipation, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is gradually becoming a mainstream method prediction method for damage monitoring of coal and rock. To better improve the prediction accuracy of EMR, it is crucial to investigate time‐frequency characteristics of EMR and the influence of coal and rock properties on EMR that occurs in the fracture process. In this paper, the deformation and fracture process of raw coal, shaped coal, and cement specimens under compression are observed, and time‐frequency evolution characteristics of EMR below ultralow frequency (ULF) under different loading stages are evaluated. Then, the inherent reasons of time‐frequency evolution of EMR reflecting the damage performance are analyzed. Meanwhile, the effect of loading condition and composition and structure of materials on EMR is discussed. Results show that there is obvious EMR below ULF in the deformation and fracture process of coal and rock materials, and the combined denoising method of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and wavelet is suitable for extraction of EMR. Besides, the amplitude is approximately inversely proportional to frequency of electromagnetic signals, and the relationship between pulse count of EMR and damage is related to the homogeneity of coal and rock materials. Moreover, the time‐frequency characteristic parameter of EMR, such as amplitude, pulse count, and frequency spectrum, can indirectly reflect the damage evolution process of coal and rock. These results can provide a theoretical basis for remote monitoring of coal and rock dynamic disaster using EMR below ULF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding gas diffusion characteristics of coal particles is a significant theoretical basis for the exploitation of coalbed methane. Generally, diffusion experiments are performed under constant pressure conditions, and scholars seldom discuss gas desorption experiments with constant volume, but the recognition of this characteristic is also equally important. Based on this, the paper conducted coal particles desorption experiments under conditions of constant volume to explore gas diffusion characteristics under different adsorption equilibrium pressures and initial emission environmental pressures. The experimental data showed that the variation law of desorption amount with time under constant volume conditions conformed to the Langmuir-like equation. Meanwhile, the rising of initial emission environmental pressure reinforced the linear relationship between the limitation desorption amount and the adsorption equilibrium pressure. When the initial emission environmental pressure was 0.10 MPa, the correlation coefficient of linear fitting between them was as high as 0.9826. To better describe the diffusion process of this condition, a dynamic diffusion model of coal particles gas diffusion under constant volume conditions was established. The calculated values of this model had a preferable consistency with the experimental data, and the correlation coefficients were all over 0.99, which verified the reliability of the model. This research makes up for the theory of gas diffusion and provides a theoretical basis for coalbed methane extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• 1 Stress distribution was recalculated by stress-softening and prominent dilatancy. • 2 Gas-bearing coal under impact loading was a compaction followed by ruin process. • 3 Measures principles were mainly aimed at fracture and stress-concentration areas. • 4 Preliminary goal-reaching parameter based on principles was proposed and applied. As the increasing demand for coal and the depletion of shallow coal resources, the tendency of coal mining in China is progressively shifting to deeper areas, which brings about a circumstance where the frequency and intensity of coal and gas outburst accidents have further deteriorated. Nowadays, there are many outburst prevention measures being applied on site, while this disaster still occurs from time to time. Therefore, to better improve the preventing outcome of them, this paper came forward with some principles, based on the mechanical theory of deep mining and damage evolution procedure concerning coal containing gas underneath the impact load. The primary conclusions were as follows: the stresses, strains, and associated widths in the three areas, namely fracture area, plastic area, and elastic area, in front of the working face were recalculated by considering stress-softening and dilatancy of coal mass. The damage evolution of gas-bearing coal mass under impact loading was displayed in the LS-DYNA numerical simulation as a process of compaction followed by destruction. The proposed principles could be split into two perspectives, one for the fracture area, specifically, to minimize the descending of the coal mass's strength in this area; another for the stress-concentration zone, namely, to abate the thrust due to extrusion and deformation, on the coal body which was located in the front area. According to those principles, a preliminary goal-reaching parameter was proposed and it was implemented for the evaluation of advanced drilling. The results will cooperate to rationalize the design and layout of local outburst prevention measures, thereby enhancing the efficiency of control and ameliorating the deteriorating scenario of outburst disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal and gas outburst is a serious disaster in the mining, and crosscut coal is the most prone to cause the coal and gas outburst. In order to study the mechanism of outburst, this paper studied the stress distribution characteristics in front of the working face in the process of rock roadway driving before implementing crosscut coal firstly. On this basis, the hypothesis of stress distribution on the "strong and soft face" of coal-rock mass was proposed. And by using the hypothesis, the mechanical equation for the parameter changes of the plastic zone in front of the working face in crosscut coal was established, and the width and morphological characteristics of the plastic zone in crosscut coal were analyzed. The results show that during the process, as the working face moves forward, the shape distribution of the plastic zone in front of the working face changes from the "semielliptical" to "semibutterfly," And based on the distribution characteristics of plastic zone in working face in crosscut coal, modification proposals for outburst-prevention measures were proposed and provided technical support for the outburst-prevention measures and key parameters setting to prevent the coal outburst in crosscut coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high‐pressure gas expansion‐induced deformation and dynamic fracture of coal are important parts of coal and gas outburst. To better understand the law of this process, laboratory experiments and numerical simulation are used to study the law of damage. A cavity with different pressures of CH4 or N2 was destroyed by a jack to achieve the rapid expansion of the gas and coal fracture inside. The particle size distribution of the coal particles before and after the experiment was measured, and the breakage ratio and the newly added surface area were calculated. The experimental results indicate that during the gas expansion process, the breakage ratio of coal and the newly added surface area clearly increase with the increase in gas pressure. Finally, a numerical model based on peridynamic theory was developed to simulate crack generation and the propagation of coal induced by the expansion of gases at different pressures. The numerical simulation results show that the higher the initial gas pressure is, the higher the number of failure units. Moreover, only when the gas pressure is large enough will the coal crack in various directions at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment designed to simulate coal during excavation was conducted. Microseismic signals of coal under vibration conditions during excavation and subsequent waiting time of the coal roadway at different excavation speeds were collected and analyzed. During the excavation and subsequent waiting time, the stress in coal is redistributed, and the concentrated stress is gradually transferred to the deeper section of the coal seam. The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) is used to effectively denoise the collected signals. According to the noise-reduced signal, the amplitude and pulse number of the microseismic signals emitted during the excavation process are much larger than those of the waiting time process. During excavation, the energy and event numbers of microseismic signals increase first and then decrease as the excavation speed increases. The faster the excavation speed, the more the energy, and the higher the event numbers of the microseismic signals released during the subsequent waiting time. When the excavation speed is faster, more elastic potential accumulates in the coal seam and the concentration stress is greater. As the concentrated stress moves forward in time without excavation, more coal seams fail, and more microseismic signals are released. The microseismic signal and the stress evolution law can provide a reasonable explanation for the forward movement of the concentrated stress and coal failure during roadway excavation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the coal mining process, the destabilization of loaded coal mass is a prerequisite for coal and rock dynamic disaster, and surface cracks of the coal and rock mass are important indicators, reflecting the current state of the coal body. The detection of surface cracks in the coal body plays an important role in coal mine safety monitoring. In this paper, a method for detecting the surface cracks of loaded coal by a vibration failure process is proposed based on the characteristics of the surface cracks of coal and support vector machine (SVM). A large number of cracked images are obtained by establishing a vibration-induced failure test system and industrial camera. Histogram equalization and a hysteresis threshold algorithm were used to reduce the noise and emphasize the crack; then, 600 images and regions, including cracks and non-cracks, were manually labelled. In the crack feature extraction stage, eight features of the cracks are extracted to distinguish cracks from other objects. Finally, a crack identification model with an accuracy over 95% was trained by inputting the labelled sample images into the SVM classifier. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has a higher accuracy than the conventional algorithm and can effectively identify cracks on the surface of the coal and rock mass automatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have studied the influence of an electrostatic field on the process of methane adsorption on the surface of coal under various conditions. We have determined the values of the Langmuir adsorption constants for the coal samples and have analyzed the adsorption mechanism. We found that gas adsorption is intensified in an electric field. We established that one of the Langmuir constants for tectonically deformed coal is larger than for raw coal, while the other constant, which usually remains unchanged, tends to increase when exposed to the field. We estimated the surface free energy of the system and we established that it increases with an increase in the electric field intensity. According to the thermodynamics of spontaneous processes, usually the Gibbs free energy of a system tends to decrease as a result of intensification of adsorption, and therefore application of an electric field leads to its increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deformation and failure of coal and rock materials is the primary cause of many engineering disasters. How to accurately and effectively monitor and forecast the damage evolution process of coal and rock mass, and form a set of prediction methods and prediction indicators is an urgent engineering problems to be solved in the field of rock mechanics and engineering. As a form of energy dissipation in the deformation process of coal and rock, microseismic (MS) can indirectly reflect the damage of coal and rock. In order to analyze the relationship between the damage degree of coal and rock and time-frequency characteristics of MS, the deformation and fracture process of coal and rock materials under different loading modes was tested. The time-frequency characteristics and generation mechanism of MS were analyzed under different loading stages. Meanwhile, the influences of properties of coal and rock materials on MS signals were studied. Results show that there is an evident mode cutoff point between high-frequency and low-frequency MS signals. The properties of coal and rock, such as the development degree of the original fracture, particle size and dense degree have a decisive influence on the amplitude, frequency, energy and other characteristic parameters of MS signals. The change of MS parameters is closely related to material damage, but has no strong relation with the loading rate. The richness of MS signals before the main fracture depends on the homogeneity of materials. With the increase of damage, the energy release rate increases, which can lead to the widening of MS signals spectrum. The stiffness and natural frequency of specimens decreases correspondingly. Meanwhile, the main reason that the dominant frequency of MS detected by sensors installed on the surface of coal and rock materials is mainly low-frequency is friction loss and the resonance effect. In addition, the spectrum and energy evolution of MS can be used as a characterization method of the damage degree of coal and rock materials. Furthermore, the results can provide important reference for prediction and early warning of some rock engineering disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion coefficient of gases in coal varies with time. This study aims to develop an unsteady dynamic diffusion (UDD) model based on the decay of diffusion coefficient with time and the change of integral. This study conducted a series of gas desorption and diffusion experiments with three different combinations of particle sizes and gas pressures and compared the diffusion coefficients of the three models. The UDD model exhibited good fitting results, and both the UDD and bidisperse models fitted the experimental data better than the unipore model. In addition, the dynamic diffusion coefficient (DDe) decreased rapidly in the initial stage but gradually decreased to a stable level in the later stage. All the effective diffusion coefficients of the three models negatively correlated with the particle size. In the unipore model, the diffusion coefficient of coal samples with three particle sizes increased with gas pressure. In the bidisperse and UDD models, the diffusion coefficients (Dae, Die, and DDe) of 0.25–0.5 mm and 0.5–1.0 mm coal samples increased with gas pressure. However, DDe and Dae of 1.0–1.25 mm coal samples increased first and then decreased. Furthermore, Die decreased first and then increased, with no sign of significant pressure dependence. Finally, the correlation and significance between the constant and diffusion coefficient in the UDD model was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sorption capacity of coal is influenced by temperature, coal rank, mineral composition and moisture content. In the study, we experimentally measure the methane and carbon dioxide sorption capacity at various temperature for Illinois coal. A volumetric adsorption apparatus was employed to determine the excess gas adsorption capacity, and then the absolute adsorption capacity was estimated through the adsorbed gas phase density correction at each tested pressure. The adsorption isotherms were estimated for various temperatures from 283.15 K to 343.15 K. The experimental results indicated that both the methane and carbon dioxide adsorption capacities decrease linearly with an increase in temperature from 283.15 K up to 323.15 K, and the adsorption capacity reduction for CO 2 is more significant than that for methane. When the temperature is equal to or greater than 323.15 K, the adsorption capacities are independent of the temperature and remain constant for both gases. This means that there is a “ critical temperature point ” at which the influence of the temperature on the adsorption capacity vanishes, and the adsorption isotherms are very similar when the temperature is beyond the critical temperature point. The ratios of the CO 2 /CH 4 absolute adsorption capacities vary from 2.62 and 3.80 with the tested pressures and temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The dynamic test of coal specimens with different beddings was conducted using SHPB. • The crack propagation properties of coal were analyzed using fractal theory. • Peridynamic theory was used to simulate the dynamic fracture properties of coal. To investigate the crack propagation and dynamic mechanical properties of coal under high strain rate loading, 24 sets of Brazilian disk (BD) coal specimens with vertical and horizontal beddings were made, and tests were conducted by a split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) system. Under different impact velocities, a high-frame and high-resolution camera was employed to capture the fracture process, and two high-dynamic strain gauges were used to record the stress pulse signals simultaneously. Using one-dimensional stress wave theory, the dynamic mechanical properties of coal with different bedding directions under different impact velocities were analyzed and discussed. Experimental results indicate that bedding directions not only have a major influence on dynamic mechanical properties such as dynamic tensile strength, strain rate and strain energy but also have a great influence on the crack propagation path. Then, based on the image processing technique and fractal method, cracks conforming to the fractal have been proven, and the results further illustrate that the fractal dimension of cracks on the coal surface increased in the fracture process under SHPB loading. Finally, a numerical model based on bond-based Peridynamic theory was proposed to simulate crack propagation and dynamic mechanical properties of coal under the SHPB test, and the displacement-strain-stress fields were also calculated, which further reveal the fracture mechanism and dynamic behavior of coal under different impact loading conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]