Determination of Hazardous Zone of Coal Spontaneous Combustion in Ultra-Long Working Face Based on the Gob Porosity Evolution and Flow Field Distribution

Coal fire remains one of the main hazards of underground work. Spontaneous coal fires cause serious casualties and property losses. At present, most of the studies on coal spontaneous combustion have been conducted on working faces shorter than 200 m. However, the ultra-long working face gob of shallow buried coal seam is much larger, the distribution of its flow field is more complex, and, thus, risk of spontaneous combustion in the gob is higher. Exploring the evolution law of the gob flow field of ultra-long working face to quickly determine the range of the coal spontaneous combustion hazardous zone is of great significance to the safe production of similar mines. In this study, the gas flow field distribution in the gob of an ultra-long working face was measured by buried pipeline method and oxygen concentration was used as the index. It is found that the oxygen concentration decreases with the advance of the working face. Based on the flow field distribution, the oxidation zone of the gob was determined. Meanwhile, a three-dimensional (3D) numerical model of the working face was established, and the overlying stratum collapse and porosity evolution in the gob were simulated using the particle flow software, PFC3D discrete element software, for the porosity distribution law of the gob. The obtained porosity data were then imported into FLUENT using the custom function UDF to construct a 3D grid model. The flow field distribution in the gob was then numerically simulated for the seepage and migration law of the wind flow in the gob. The results reveal an arch-shaped wind flow field distribution with a swirl shape on the intake airway side. In the strike direction, the wind flow gradually becomes weaker with the advance of the working face. In the dip direction, the wind flow seepage range on the return airway side is obviously higher than that on the intake airway side. In the vertical direction, the wind flow range in the upper gob is larger than that in the middle and lower gob. The spontaneous combustion and oxidation zone of the gob is determined to be at 140.4–313.3 m on the intake airway side, 201.2–351.6 m in the middle of the gob, and 153.2–328.1 m on the return airway side. Finally, the residual coal distribution was superimposed onto the oxygen concentration distribution to obtain the spontaneous residual coal combustion hazardous zone in the gob.