About the necessity for changing the methodical approach to the calculation of methane release rate in high-performance working faces of Kuzbass

It is traditionally believed that the use of high-performance mining equipment in collieries leads not only to increasing productivity of the enterprise, but also to significant increasing release of methane into the mine air. Based on this, the existing regulatory and methodological support for calculations allowed predicting the rate of methane release into the mine air and determining the required operating modes of the ventilation system to ensure mining safety. The task of this study is to investigate in practice the laws of methane release as a function of the productivity of mining equipment and to identify phenomena that affect the nature of these laws. Based on the data of air gas monitoring, the results of statistical study of methane release in 101 working faces of 33 collieries of Kuzbass are presented. In 76 working faces, parabolic law of the dependence of the methane release on the productivity of mining equipment, having peak points in relation to the rate of advance and productivity of the shearer were established with high confidence. Using the law of A. Darcy and the equation of sorption of I. Langmuir, it has been theoretically established that methane release from loose coal is a function inversely proportional to the linear hyperbolic dependence, and also has a peak point in relation to the rate of advance and productivity of the shearer. Analysis of the established dependence of the rate of methane release from the loose coal shows that the methane release significantly (quadratically) decreases with decreasing the rotational speed of the cutting auger and the number of cutters in the cutting line or the number of blades on the drum. Methane release also quadratically increases with increasing formation thickness and the shearer cutting width. The extreme dependence of the rate of methane release from loose coal forms two areas of allowable rate of advance and productivity of the shearer by gas factor.