Importance and Characteristics of Underground Mine Gas Explosions

Abstract

Mine gas explosions present a serious safety threat in the worldwide coal mining industry. This chapter summaries the mine gas explosion accidents since the beginning of mining. It can be seen that most of disasters were resulted from mine gas and coal dust explosions. In the U.S., 420 gas explosion disasters were responsible for 10,390 deaths which represented 89.52% of all fatalities in coal mine disaster (As of year 2006). Due to complicated strata geological conditions and coal production process reasons, there are some special working sections in the underground which expose a high risk of explosion happening that would possibly cause workers’ casualties and properties lost. This chapter also provides an overview of identifying locations where the mine gas explosion events often happen. Typical explosion cases and their brief accident analysis are also given. Although the fatalities and injuries caused by gas explosions are greatly reduced until now, there are still safety problems needs to be resolved.