Water inrush in mining fields is considered as one of the major dangerous factors for safe production and workers’ lives in coal mines. To forecast the water inrush in coal mines, various software related to flow simulation has been used in recent years. Especially, Visual MODFLOW (VMOD) is one of the powerful software that provides the tools for building three-dimensional groundwater conceptual and numerical models.
Visual MODFLOW (VMOD) can simulate the water flow distribution state with the hydrogeological conditions and detailed data in accordance with pumping well tests of the mine. In numerical simulations for underwater flow, repeated measurements of water level is essential for forecasting water inrush, so the control point drawdown must be clearly calculated in accordance with the mining construction plans, dewatering period and drainage time.
Song Myong Song, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has simulated the water flow distribution state considering the hydrogeological conditions and detailed data in accordance with pumping well tests of a mine.
First, he built a mathematical model to simulate the water inrush along the major faults of the mine by using three-dimensional simulation of groundwater flow analysis software (Visual MODFLOW). Then, on the basis of the full analysis of the geological and hydrogeological conditions, he set several major faults as boundary conditions and evaluated the water level distribution under steady flow conditions using the in-situ well pumping test data. After that, he determined optimal parameters in relation to the water inrush forecasting using the PEST-ASP module in Visual MODFLOW in order to get the accurate groundwater flow distribution at the control points including normal and maximum water inrush.
Comparing the simulation results with in-situ data of water inrush, the relative error was lower than 0.74%, showing that this method is the most effective for forecasting water inrush in coal mines.
For further details, please refer to his paper “Forecast of Mine Inflow using In-situ Well Test and Visual Modflow in an Underground Mine” in “CHALLENGES IN ROCK MECHANICS & ROCK ENGINEERING”, proceedings of the 15th ISRM Congress 2023 & 72nd Geomechanics Colloquium.
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