A study of the structural features of outburst-dangerous and non-outburst dangerous coal layers was conducted. It was shown that coal taken from a sudden outburst zone has a significantly greater sorption surface than coal from the same layer which was not part of the sudden outburst. The size of the sorption surface of coal is affected by its history up to that point; thus the heating of the coal sample during its preparation enlarges its sorption surface. An electron microscope study of coal surfaces has shown that for coal from outburst-dangerous layers, a disturbed structure with a large quantity of fissures and partings the size of 1 micrometer is typical. Under the same enlargement, a coal structure from safe coal layers is much more uniform. The study of digital images of coal surfaces, taken with the help of an electron microscope, shows that the structural institution of surface elements may be presented by multifractal analysis, with its spectrum of fractal dimensions, which allows us to state quantitative distinctions in coal microstructures for outburst-dangerous layers. Coal from outburst-dangerous layers has a greater set of structural elements, and therefore a spectrum of fractal dimensions that is 1.5-2 times wider than for nonoutburst dangerous layers.
Efficient Production of coal faces and safety of coal mining in relation to gas content while mining the highly gas-bearing coal seams shall be provided by using the highly efficient drain-age and clearing means of the coalmine methane emission sources. In order to provide efficient basis for decision making and validating of technical solutions while designing the coalmine drainage systems there have been developed the Technical Regulations for Methane Extraction and Recovery under conditions of active highly gas-bearing seam mining. These Technical Regulations were successfully tested in course of process design of the coalmine methane drain- age systems for Kirov and Kotinskaya Mines owned by SUEK-Kuzbass.
