Risk assessment of coal mine gas explosion based on cloud integrated similarity and fuzzy DEMATEL

The risk of coal mine gas explosion seriously threatens the continuous safe production of coal mines, which in turn affects the national energy security, so it is important to prevent and control the coal mine gas risk. Current risk assessment methods are difficult to fully express the uncertainty in the assessment process, and calculating index weights is easy to deviate from reality. This study introduces Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) as well as the cloud model, and proposes a new coal mine gas explosion risk assessment model based on cloud integrated similarity and fuzzy DEMATEL. The model fully expresses the uncertainty in the whole risk assessment process and makes the index weights assignment more reasonable. It also combines the calculation of cloud integrated similarity to more accurately determine the risk level based on the advantage that the cloud model can visually display the risk status of the assessment object. An example study was conducted on a mine of a large state-owned coal mine enterprise in Shaanxi Province, China. The results show that the method helps coal mine enterprises to accurately assess gas explosion risks, identify weak links in risk prevention and control, and provide a powerful means for continuous improvement of risk management level.