Laboratory Study on the Rising Temperature of Spontaneous Combustion in Coal Stockpiles and a Paste Foam Suppression Technique

Abstract

The spontaneous combustion of coal stockpiles is one of the major hazards during coal mining, storage, and transportation. To overcome the shortcomings of large-scale experiments and CFD modeling techniques, a mathematical model of rising temperature in a hemispherical coal stockpile with a constant heat source in the center was derived and simplified based on a previous study on the spatiotemporal temperature and heat transfer in simple bodies. From the rising temperature experiments in a coal stockpile, the actual temperature rise was greater than the predicted value from the theoretical mathematical model, and the difference in these values increased with an increase in test time. The distribution of the temperature field caused by the spontaneous combustion of coal was fit to revise the mathematical model for the temperature rise in a coal stockpile. In addition, a novel material, called paste foam, was prepared to prevent the spontaneous combustion of a coal stockpile, and the working principle of th...