Fracture characteristics of basic roof and mechanism of strata behavior in a pillarless working face

Abstract

Abstract As a research hotspot, pillarless coal mining technology has a high resource recovery rate and low roadway surrounding rock stress. To grasp the three-dimensional fracture characteristics of the basic roof is the basic to reveal the strata behavior mechanism in the pillarless working face. Thus, aiming at pillarless coal mining, the analytical solution of three-dimensional fracture mechanics models of a basic roof was analyzed by elastic thin plate theory; the principal stress distribution of a basic roof being cut by continuous artificial fractures and discontinuous artificial fractures was analyzed; the fracture characteristics of the basic roof was revealed and the strata behavior mechanism was obtained. The following conclusions can be drawn: (i) an ‘O + X’ fracture occurred in the basic roof of a traditional working face, while an opposite-trapezoid-shaped or ≡-shaped fracture was generated in the pillarless working face. (ii) When the basic roof broke, the trapezoidal or rectangular hinged plate traversed the entire pillarless working face, causing the end supports to be pressured, while the trapezoidal hinged plate did not traverse the entire traditional working face and the end supports were not pressured. (iii) The break of a basic roof induced by artificial fractures in pillarless mining reduced or even eliminated the triangular hinged plate area along the goaf edges, making a roadway in the stress relief zone. (iv) Compared with the fractures in traditional roadways and in a discontinuous roof-cutting roadway, continuous fractures could minimize surrounding rock stress and make it easy to maintain a roof-cutting roadway.