Roof-Breaking Characteristics and Ground Pressure Behavior in Deep Jurassic Coal Seams: A Thick-Plate Model and Field Measurements

Roof-breaking characteristics and ground pressure behavior of the coalface are instrumental in guiding deep Jurassic coal seam mining, in particular in the Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia regions of China. A thick-plate mechanical model (TPMM) of the main roof was developed and applied to the case study of 21102 first-mined coalface (FMC) of the Hulusu Coal Mine (HCM) in the Hujirt Mining Area (HMA), China. A theoretical analysis performed via the developed model revealed that the first and periodic breaking intervals of the main roof were 40.6 and 25.0 m, respectively. The roof failure occurred in the tensile mode, was controlled by the internal stress sigma x in the rock strata, and started from the center of the long side with the fixed support in the goaf. The field measurement of roof weighting was also performed for the coalface advance from zero to 400 m. The measurement results showed that the first weighting average interval was 41.4 m, and the average interval of periodic weighting was 22.0 m, which agreed with the theoretical calculation and proved the proposed model's feasibility. Finally, the frequency distribution features of the hydraulic support working resistance in the FMC were analyzed statistically. The results showed that the ZY10000-16/32D supports could adapt to the mining geological conditions of the FMC. However, the margin of the rated working resistance of supports was still small. Thus, roof management enhancement during the mining process was strongly recommended. These research findings could offer theoretical guidance for safe and high-efficiency production in the coal mines under similar geological conditions.