Study on the Rheological Failure Mechanism of Weakly Cemented Soft Rock Roadway during the Mining of Close-Distance Coal Seams: A Case Study

During the mining of the shallow-buried and close-distance multiple coal seam, the rheological failure of the surrounding weakly cemented soft rock of the roadway in the lower coal seam under the concentrated stress is very rare. However, the stress on the roof of the upper coal seam is transmitted down through the residual pillar, resulting in this situation. Taking the Gaojialiang coal mine which is located in the mining areas of western China as the research object, the failure mechanism of the roadway roof under the residual coal pillar in the shallow-buried and close-distance multiple seam is studied in combination with field monitoring and numerical simulation. Furthermore, suggestions on the roadway support under such geological conditions are proposed. The results show that the residual coal pillar in the working face of the lower coal seam gradually collapses during the mining of the shallow-buried and close-distance multiple coal seam. The concentrated stress transferred by the coal pillar increases further, which makes the roof stress of the lower coal seam roadway to increase continuously. In addition, the stress of the roadway roof also increases further due to the rotation of the broken rock above the goaf, and the peek region of stress moves to the nongoaf area. Combining the heavy concentrated stress and weakly cemented property, the shallow-buried surrounding rock shows rheological behavior and failure. Therefore, we must pay more attention on the creep failure of the roadway roof under the action of the residual coal pillar even in the shallow-buried coal seam.