Causes and estimability of fluctuations in methane emission dynamics in underground borehole

Today, Russia has no any standardized procedure for estimating mine methane resources which are yet unrecoverable. At the same time, the existing theories offer only a partial explanation of dynamic fluctuations in the composition of the recoverable methane–air mixture. This research reveals the features of the nonlinear dynamics in methane emission during coal mining. The mechanism of disintegration processes in coal-and-rock mass is evolved further based on the block structure of the geomedium and nonlinear geomechanical processes described using theory of ‘pendulum waves’. The nonlinear change in the composition of gas–air mixture in underground boreholes is indirectly reflective of the nonlinear disintegration processes running in coal-and-rock mass. The methodology of the research included review of literature sources on the nonlinear geomechanical processes in undermined rock mass, statistical processing of data on methane concentrations in No. 2-type boreholes LOESS and visualization of the data in gnuplot. The article describes the results that show that the shape of the response surface (methane emission dynamics) ‘turns’ with the coordinate system transformation, while the limits of the extreme points relative to the distance from the panel start (S) remain the same. This means that the wave spectrum has a complex dynamic nature. 

Brigida V. S. Causes and estimability of fluctuations in methane emission dynamics in underground borehole. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2026;(10-1):77-86. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_2026_101_0_77.

V.S. Brigida, Cand. Sci. (Eng.), Assistant Professor, Center for Project Activities, Moscow Polytechnic University, 107023, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: 1z011@inbox.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9421-5613.

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