High-pressure water jet for rock burst prevention of roadway ribs in strong mine pressure mines: a case study

In order to study the reasonable pressure relief and rock burst prevention method for roadway ribs in strong mine pressure mines, a roadway in excavation that belongs to panel 250,204 of mining area 2502 in Yanbei colliery was taken as a typical engineering background. By means of on-site survey, theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and on-site industrial applications, the reasonable pressure relief parameters of high-pressure water jet technology for rock burst prevention on roadway ribs were studied. The results show that a “strong–weak-strong” prevention structure is formed in coal mass inside the roadway ribs, and the increase of drilling length of water jet section can effectively increase the elastic–plastic “weak structure” area; based on the engineering geological conditions of roadway in panel 250,204, the drilling diameter of the water jet cutting section (D) is 300 mm, the spacing of two adjacent water jet boreholes (N) is 3.0 m, the length of protective section (l1) is about 5 m, and the length of water jet cutting section (l2) is about 15 m; after the reasonable high-pressure water jet parameters were applied to the coal mass inside the roadway ribs, the monitoring results showed that the roadway ribs were not easy to accumulate high energy in the coal mass inside the roadway ribs and induce rock burst. The study conclusions provide theoretical foundation and a new guidance for preventing rock burst with similar engineering geological conditions.