Quantitative Analysis and Evaluation of Coal Mine Geological Structures Based on Fractal Theory

• Main Authors: Gaizhuo Zhang, Junzhong Guo, Bin Xu, Lulu Xu, Zhenxue Dai, Shangxian Yin, Mohamad Reza Soltanian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: geological structure; fractal dimension; quantitative analysis and evaluation; mathematical geology
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/7/1925

With the increasing depth of coal mining, the quantitative evaluation of the degree of geological structure development is becoming increasingly important for the control of mine water hazards in coal mining areas. Understanding the complexity of geological structure development can improve the safety and efficiency of coal production. At present, various evaluation indicators of the geological structure development cannot fully reflect the complexity of faults and folds, and the evaluation process is usually affected by subjective human factors. In this paper, the fractal dimension from fractal theory is used as the evaluation indicator to quantitatively analyze and evaluate the complexity of fault and fold structure in the mining area. To verify the evaluation results, the mathematical geology method is applied in an analysis of the trend surface of fault and fold networks. The results indicate that the fractal dimension can be applied for the quantitative analysis and evaluation of the complexity of fault and fold networks. In addition, the outcome of this work provides new insights into how to characterize the fault and fold structures of coal mining areas in northern China, and has some important implications to ensure the coal production safety.