Experimental study on mechanical damage characteristics of water-bearing tar-rich coal under microwave radiation

Abstract

Abstract As a recognized special resource, tar-rich coal can extract the country's scarce oil and gas resources and generate semi-coke that can replace anthracite and coking coal. The tar-rich coal in northern Shaanxi is prominent, but due to the dense structure and high strength of tar-rich coal, it is easy to cause frequent dynamic disasters in coal mining. Therefore, the realization of pressure relief and disaster reduction has become the primary problem in mining tar-rich coal. There are many shortcomings in conventional pressure relief methods, so a new method of microwave-weakening coal is proposed. Through different water saturation treatments of tar-rich coal samples, the longitudinal wave velocity degradation trend and surface crack expansion law of water-bearing coal after microwave irradiation were analyzed, and the strength softening characterization and energy evolution relationship under the combined action of microwave and water were studied. Fractal dimension and its internal correlation based on the equivalent side length-mass of coal sample fragments. The experimental results show that: (1) Under the same microwave radiation condition, with the increase of water saturation, the deterioration trend of physical and mechanical parameters such as longitudinal wave velocity and peak strength is obvious. (2) After microwave radiation, the uniaxial compression results show that the coal sample is damaged by load, there is still a high residual strength, the ratio of elastic energy to dissipation energy decreases, and the possibility of rockburst of the coal sample decreases. The strength softening degree of coal specimen under the degradation of microwave and water is the highest, followed by microwave and water. (3) The fractal dimension is inversely proportional to the moisture content and microwave radiation intensity, and the fractal dimension has a significant positive correlation with the peak intensity and longitudinal wave velocity. The mechanical damage law of water-bearing tar-rich coal under microwave action is revealed, which aims to solve the problem of weakening and reducing the impact of hard coal on-site to a certain extent, ensure the safety of working face, and improve the mining efficiency of tar-rich coal. It provides basic theoretical support for microwave-assisted hydraulic fracturing technology and effective weakening measures for hard roof treatment.

Keywords

• Microwave radiation
• Moisture content
• Tar-rich coal
• Energy evolution
• Crack expansion
• Fractal dimension