Evaluation of Water Inrush Risk in the Fault Zone of the Coal Seam Floor in Madaotou Coal Mine, Shanxi Province, China

As coal seams are mined at greater depths, the threat of high water pressure from the confined aquifer in the floor that mining operations face has become increasingly prominent. Taking the Madaotou mine field in the Datong Coalfield as the research object, in the context of mining under pressure, for the main coal seams in the mining area, first of all, an improved evaluation method for the vulnerability of floor water inrush is adopted for hazard prediction. Secondly, numerical simulation is used to conduct a simulation analysis on the fault zones in high-risk areas. By using the fuzzy C-means clustering method (FCCM) to improve the classification method for the normalized indicators in the original variable-weight vulnerability evaluation, the risk zoning for water inrush from the coal seam floor is determined. Then, through the numerical simulation method, a simulation analysis is carried out on high-risk areas to simulate the disturbance changes of different mining methods on the fault zones so as to put forward reasonable mining methods. The results show that the classification of the variable-weight intervals of water inrush from the coal seam floor is more suitable to be classified by using fuzzy clustering, thus improving the prediction accuracy. Based on the time effect of the delayed water inrush of faults, different mining methods determine the duration of the disturbance on the fault zones. Therefore, by reducing the disturbance time on the fault zones, the risk of karst water inrush from the floor of the fault zones can be reduced. Through prediction evaluation and simulation analysis, the evaluation of the risk of water inrush in coal mines has been greatly improved, which is of great significance for ensuring the safe and efficient mining of mines.