About trends of improvement of technological schemes for methane recovery from the rock-coal massif

Abstract

Purpose of the research was to improve efficiency of underground gas drainage from the rock-coal massif. It is substantiated that most promising solution of the problem of increasing efficiency of gas drainage from the massif is to mine additional gas-drainage road. This approach allows separating processes of coal mining and methane recovery in space and time. The Ukrainian normative documents is recommended to mine the road behind zones with high rock pressure. We found that in difficult conditions of coal seam mining, distance from road to working long wall would be more than 100 m. This distance reduces efficiency of gas drainage and is not economically feasible due to significant length of gas-drainage boreholes and air breakthroughs. Therefore, gas-drainage road should be located as close to the working long wall as possible, but with possibility to ensure its stability during its entire service life. Experimental studies were conducted in Zasyadko Mine and Krasnolymanska Mine. It is established that with increasing distance from working wall to the gas-drainage road location in the massif, unloaded by the under working displacement, the road contour decreases, and methane flow rate increases in power dependencies. Use of these results will make calculation of the gas-drainage road rational location more accurate.