Year

2019

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering

Abstract

Gas explosion in underground coal mines is one of the most devastating disasters which can lead to the death of coal miners and damage of mine equipment and infrastructures. Abnormal gas emission, or coal/gas outburst is itself a serious mine hazard, and it can also potentially cause a gas explosion as a result of high volume release and accumulation of combustible gases such as methane. Only a few previous studies involve the investigation of the gas explosion hazard distribution, and most of the research work focused on gas explosions in small-scale pipes or ducts. It is necessary to understand the mechanism of coal and gas outburst and the law of spatial motion of mine gas in gateroads following a coal and gas outburst incident. In addition, the process of a gas explosion and its propagation mechanism should be studied to develop mitigation strategies for the prevention and suppression of gas explosions, based on real coal mine roadway layouts and dimensions.

With the development of computational technology, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have become a cost-effective and time-saving method for the large scale study of coal/gas outburst and gas explosion in underground coal mines. Literature reviews on the numerical calculations of gas explosions, especially the numerical simulations by CFD codes, indicate the importance of the optimum selection of turbulence and combustion models for these modelling studies...

Share

COinS
 

Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.