Research and Application of Multi-Mode Joint Monitoring System for Shaft Wall Deformation

The mine shaft is an important channel linking the underground with the surface, undertaking important functions such as personnel and material transportation and ventilation. Thus the shaft, known as the throat of the mine, is the production hub of the whole mine. Since 1980, damage to coal mine shafts has occurred in many areas of China, which has seriously impacted the safety of mine production. Therefore, real-time monitoring of the shaft wall condition is necessary. However, the traditional monitoring method cannot achieve long-term, continuous and stable monitoring of the shaft wall due to the harsh production environment downhole. Hence, a multi-mode joint sensing system for shaft wall deformation and damage is proposed, which is mainly based on FBG sensing and supplemented by vibrating-string sensing. The principle of FBG sensing is that when the external environment such as temperature, pressure and strain changes, the characteristics of light transmission in the FBG such as wavelength, phase and amplitude will also change accordingly. Using the linear relationship between the strain and the wavelength shift of the FBG, the strain of the measured structure is obtained by calculation. Firstly, this paper introduces the basic situations of the mine and analyzes the causes shaft damage. Then the vertical and circumferential theoretical values at different shaft depths are derived in combination with the corresponding force characteristics. Moreover, a four-layer strain transfer structure model of the shaft consisting of the fiber, the protective layer, the bonding layer and the borehole wall is established, which leads to the derivation of the strain transfer relational expression for the surface-mounted FBG sensing on the shaft wall. The strain-sensing transfer law and the factors influencing the strain-sensing transfer of the surface-mounted FBG on the shaft wall are analyzed. The order of key factors influencing the strain-sensing transfer is obtained by numerical simulation: the radius of the protective layer, the length of the FBG paste, and the elastic modulus of the adhesive layer. The packaging parameters with the best strain-sensing transfer of the surface-mounted FBG on the shaft wall are determined. A total of six horizontal level monitoring stations are arranged in a coal mine auxiliary shaft. Through the comprehensive analysis of the sensing data of the two sensors, the results show that the average shaft wall strain–transfer efficiency measured by the FBG sensor reaches 94.02%. The relative average error with the theoretical derivation of shaft wall transfer efficiency (98.6%) is 4.65%, which verifies the strain transfer effect of the surface-mounted FBG applied to the shaft wall. The shaft wall’s deformation monitoring system with FBG sensing as the main and vibrating-string sensing as the supplement is important to realize the early warning of well-wall deformation and further research of the shaft wall rupture mechanism.