Investigation of Water Inrush from Karst Subsidence Column by Using a Coupled Hydromechanical Model

The direct cause for the water in-rush during underground mining is the mining-induced rockmass damage and resultant catastrophe of seepage characteristics.The work begins with proposing a constitutive law for rock failure under coupled hydromechanical conditions when the rock heterogeneity,as well as the coupling between deformation and fluid flow,is incorporated.This constitutive law is implemented into commercial FEM software named COMSOL Multiphysis(CM) based on the MATLAB programming,and is used for evaluating the water inrush possibility of a Karst subsidence column at Fan'gezhaung Colliery in China.The complete water in-rush process is numerically reproduced,based on which the possibility for water in-rush is assessed and the associated mechanical mechanism is clarified.