Study on the propagation characteristics of gas explosions disturbed by crushed rock in tunnels through gas-containing stratum

Gas explosions pose a serious risk to tunnel construction when through a gas-containing stratum. The crushed rock accumulated in tunnel could have a significant impact on explosion. To understand the mechanism of crushed rock influence on gas explosion, methane/air explosion experiments under the crushed rock with different blockage ratios and void ratios were carried out using an independently designed experimental system. The results show that the crushed rock can significantly affect the explosion intensity, and the various blockage ratios show a higher degree of influence than the void ratio. The crushed rock has the combined effect of accelerating and quenching on the flame, and there has an optimum blockage that dramatically accelerates the flame propagation. The needle-shaped, divergent and reversed flames appeared with high blockage ratio and void ratio conditions. The velocity ratio (ratio of the flame front velocities upstream and downstream of the crushed rock) has an exponential function relationship with the blockage ratio. Under certain void ratio conditions, the maximum explosion overpressure shows a parabolic trend with increasing blockage ratio. This study is helpful to guide the understanding of the explosion characteristics under practical tunnel conditions and the change law of flame structure with crushed rock obstruction.