Abstract
One of the principal indicators of the methane hazard in coal mines is gas pressure. This parameter directly affects the methane content in the seam as well as the rate of its release resulting from mining operations. Because of limitations in the existing methods for methane seam pressure measuring, primarily technical difficulties associated with direct measurement and the time-consuming nature of indirect measurement, this parameter is often disregarded in the coal and gas outburst forecasts. To overcome the above-mentioned difficulties, an attempt was made to estimate the methane seam pressure with the use of artificial neural networks. Two MLP-based models were developed to estimate the average and maximum methane seam pressure values, respectively. The analyses demonstrated high correlation between the values indicated by the neural models and the reference values determined on the basis of sorption isotherms. According to the adopted fit criterion, the prediction errors for the best fit were 2.59% and 3.04% for the average and maximum seam pressure values, respectively. The obtained determination coefficients (exceeding the value of 0.99) confirmed the very good predictive abilities of the models. These results imply a great potential for practical application of the proposed method.
Highlights
Mining operations interfere with the original structure of the rock mass, affecting the state of stresses as well as the methane seam pressure distribution [1,2]
The presented research focused on the development of neural models for prediction of the methane seam pressure values
Within the framework of the research works, two neural models based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) networks were developed
Summary
Mining operations interfere with the original structure of the rock mass, affecting the state of stresses as well as the methane seam pressure distribution [1,2] This is the main cause of the existing mining hazards, including the risk of gas and rock outbursts in underground coal mines [3,4,5]. One of the key indicators of the outburst hazard used currently for the forecasts is the methane seam pressure [2,8,9,10,11,12] This corresponds to the pressure generated by free methane contained in macropores and fractures of coal. Despite the fact that the mining regulations do not provide for the requirement to determine the methane seam pressure as often as for the obligatory measurement of methane content, there are countries, such as China, where the outburst risk assessment is based solely on the methane pressure in the seam [18]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
