Goaf gas flow modelling in 6km long longwall panel

Abstract

Understanding the goaf gas distribution in the start-up areas and in 6km long retreat panel is critical for developing gas management and spontaneous combustion (sponcom) control strategies. Extensive computational fluid dynamics modelling studies have been conducted and calibrated using operational longwall goaf data to obtain fundamental understanding of the goaf gas flow patterns in 6km panel of various goaf lengths and the effect of goaf gas emission rates on the gas flow patterns were investigated. The paper presents the results of various numerical investigations in the 6km long panel for different goaf lengths of 500m, 1km, 3km and 6km under modelled field site conditions.

Keywords

• maingate (MG)
• tailgate (TG)
• goaf
• oxygen
• ingress