Gas seepage characteristics of loaded coal under negative suction pressure

ANSYS was used in this study to simulate the change in permeability of loaded coal under negative pressure. The ANSYS transient structural module was employed to simulate the coal loading conditions and to calculate the coal volumetric strain and coal porosity change. In the ANSYS Fluent module, the porosity of the porous medium was changed to replace the coal deformation, and the outlet pressure was changed to simulate the change of negative pressure. By using 1stOpt software, the relationships among the negative pressure, effective stress, and permeability of coal were fitted, and the binary nonlinear function of permeability varying with effective stress and negative pressure was obtained, and the correlation coefficient was excellent. Results showed that the coal permeability had a negative exponential relationship with effective stress. Hence, the permeability decreased with the increase of the effective stress. The change in stress loading mode caused a sudden change in porosity and permeability. The coal permeability had an approximately linear relationship with negative pressure. Hence, permeability increased with an increase in negative pressure. However, with the increase of effective stress, the influence of negative pressure on coal permeability was gradually weakened.