Deformation Mechanism of the Coal ahead of Fully Mechanized Caving Face under High-Intensity Mining Condition

In order to study the coal deformation and failure mechanism in fully mechanized caving face under the high-intensity mining, based on the equivalent mechanical model of transversely isotropic cylindrical coal with fractures, the equivalent equations for axial, radial, and volume strains of coal sample loaded in linear elastic and plastic stages were derived in this paper. The equivalent mechanical model shows good reliability through the conventional triaxial experiment. Taking the N1206 workface in Yuwu coal mine of Luan group as the example, we have simulated the stress concentration factor of the coal body ahead of the working face with FLAC and divided three regions according to stress distribution in coal mining. Mathematical equations were derived to express the horizontal and vertical stress, which provide theoretical guidance of the stress paths in triaxial experiment about real mining stress environment simulation. Experimental results show that the volume strain’s value is about 0.4% in the coal mass deformation progress of axial compression increasing slowly area. In axial compression increasing rapidly area, the volume strain’s value varies from 0.41% to 0.27%, and the radical strain changes from compression deformation to expansion deformation gradually. The volume strain of coal sample increases sharply in axial compression releasing rapidly area; meanwhile, there are good linear relationships between Poisson’s ratio and axial strain and radial strain.