In a spontaneous coal combustion environment and in the
coal chemical
process, multiple gases, such as CH
4
, H
2
, and
CO, coexist, and explosion accidents are prone to occur. The causes
of these disasters and the explosion characteristics are key to formulating
preventive measures. To explore the effect of H
2
/CO on
the explosion pressure and thermal behavior of methane–air,
CH
4
with initial volume fractions of 7, 9.5, and 12%, which
correspond to three states of oxygen enrichment, equivalence ratio,
and oxygen depletion, was selected. Moreover, a mixed fuel system
is composed of H
2
/CO with different volume ratios. A 20
L spherical gas explosion experimental system was used to test the
peak explosion overpressure
P
max
, the
maximum explosion overpressure rise rate (d
P
/d
t
)max, and the corresponding time parameters of the H
2
/CO–CH
4
mixed system. Combined with the
thermodynamic calculation model, laminar burning velocity
S
L
, explosion heat loss
q
tra
, and other parameters were obtained. The results show that
due to the existence of the damping effect, CO has the dual characteristic
of promoting or weakening methane explosions. Compared with CO, the
effect of H
2
on the methane explosion is more significant,
and the improvement or weakening of the laminar combustion rate of
the reaction system by CO “lags” behind that of H
2
. The heat loss in the process of a gas explosion is affected
by factors such as the heat release rate, the propagation speed of
the combustion wave, and the heat dissipation effect of the container
wall. When H
2
/CO increases the laminar burning velocity
of the mixed system, the heat loss decreases accordingly. This study
also found that the laminar burning velocity model of the mixed gas
based on the ideal spherical flame propagation theory is not fully
applicable to the H
2
/CO/CH
4
mixed system in
a spherical closed space, and the calculation results have large errors
when the mixed system is close to the upper limit of the explosion.