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Impact of particle transfer on flow properties of crushed mudstones

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Abstract

Karst collapse pillar (KCP) is widespread in North China coalfields, where coal extraction above the Ordovician limestone aquifer is threatened by the abundant supply of water and a very high hydraulic pressure. KCP is composed of rock skeleton and fine fillings, which can be transferred under the effect of water flow, thus KCP usually functions as a channel for groundwater inrush. In order to investigate the mechanism of mining-induced groundwater inrush of KCP which was caused by fine fillings transfer, a self-designed particle transfer permeability testing system was used to test the crushed mudstones’ flow properties, which included fine filling particle transfer rate, porosity increase rate and permeability under the conditions of varying pore pressure, particle size mixture and compaction level (initial porosity). The tests indicate fine fillings transfer is the essential reason for mining-induced groundwater inrush (flow instability) of KCP. The flow properties changeability during fine particle transfer could be divided into four stages, i.e., initial flow stage, flow inrush stage, continued particle flow stage and stable flow stage, and flow inrush stage which is the key point to cause water inrush. Due to the crushing of edges and corners and the adjustment of the structure, the fluctuation of permeability–time relationship mainly distributed in the first two stages, which make a change to flow channel. Moreover, with the increasing of pore pressure, particle size mixture and initial porosity, the water inrush time and stable seepage time decreased more rapidly; the fine fillings, porosity and permeability increased gradually. The efficiency criteria analysis between measurement and calculation permeability shows an empirical equation can fit the relationship between porosity and permeability well, and not all of the pore structures were in flow; this means there was a part of pores that were invalid, but the effective porosity in flow can be treated as calculation value approximately.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2013CB227900 and 2015CB251601), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1261201, 51322401, 51421003, 51574228 and 51504243), the National High Technology Joint Research Program of China (2012BAB13B00), the 111 Project of China (B07028), the Basic Research Program of Jiangsu Province (BK20130051 and BK20150191), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014YC09 and 2014ZDPY08).

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  1. State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, Jiangsu, China

    Dan Ma, Xiexing Miao, Haibo Bai, Hai Pu, Zhanqing Chen, Jiangfeng Liu, Yanhua Huang, Guimin Zhang & Qi Zhang

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  1. Dan Ma
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Ma, D., Miao, X., Bai, H. et al. Impact of particle transfer on flow properties of crushed mudstones. Environ Earth Sci 75, 593 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-5382-2

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