Analysis on influencing factors of gas explosion overpressure peak in a U-shaped ventilation coal face based on orthogonal test

Numerical simulation was carried out by using the Fluent simulation software and combining it with the situation of the working face 3906 in a mine to investigate the propagation law of gas explosion in a U-shaped ventilation coal mining face and to explore the sensitivities of the overpressure attenuation of a gas explosion to different influencing factors. The relative errors between the numerically-simulated results and experimental ones are less than 15%, which verifies the reliability of the mathematical model developed in this paper. Then, the key parameters, namely, grid size, iteration time step, and ignition temperature are optimized to 0.2 m, 0.05 ms, and 1900 K, respectively. Numerical simulation indicates that the relationship between the peak of the explosion overpressure and the distance away from the explosion center of the coal face meets an exponential function relationship. The relationship between the arrival time of the peak explosion overpressure and the distance away from the explosion center meets a linear function. By designing an orthogonal array, 16 sets of data were obtained through simulation, and the following analyses were conducted based on this data. The extreme difference values of the three main control factors were obtained by using extreme difference analysis. The extreme difference value of the temperature is the greatest, the one of the gas concentration take the second, and the one of the gas accumulation area pressure is the least. The most significant impact of the temperature on the explosion overpressure attenuation in the numerical simulation, in which the R-value reaches 5.928. ANOVA analysis was carried out to study the significances of the main control factors affecting the explosion overpressure attenuation rate. In the three main control factors, the significance of the temperature is the most, the one of the gas accumulation zone pressure comes second, and the one of the gas concentration is the weakest. And the temperature shows a significance level of 31.835, while the other two factors are not significant.