A review on disaster mechanism of quicksand with a high potential energy due to mining and its prevention and control

Mining-induced quicksand with a high potential energy is one of the major disasters that threaten the pro-duction safety and miners’life. The occurrence,prevention and control are quite different from those of groundwater in-rushes in mines and quicksand in the shallow foundation engineering. Due to its characteristics of strong suddenness, high potential energy,great destructive power and difficult prevention and control,it is urgent to carry out the research on the disaster mechanism and control of underground mine quicksand with a high potential energy based on the previ-ous research. Combining with the deep and high intensive mining,the scientific research on the main process of occur-rence-forming-migration-prediction-prevention and control for quicksand with a high potential energy needs to be com-prehensively analyzed based on the typical engineering case by geological exploration and modeling,composition and structure characterization,field and long-term underground observation,monitoring and early warning,centrifugal modeling and etc. Therefore,the key scientific problems such as the starting and disaster mechanism,the movement of wa-ter and sand mixture flow in the mining-induced fractured and caving overburden,the mechanism of the propagation and gelation of grouting,and the seepage failure of water-sand retention bulkhead need to be comprehensively studied accordingly. Specifically,scientific research should mainly focus on the geological background,starting criteria,move-ment,disaster mechanisms,identification and evaluation,and prevention and control principles for quicksand with high potential energy,which constituted the key technical system of prevention and control for the quicksand with high po-tential energy. The results will provide a theoretical support for solving the technical problems in the prevention and control of water and sand inrush with high potential energy induced by mining. With the uncertainty of the process of engineering inducement and disaster results,the research on the quicksand disaster should be expanded to a compre-hensive prevention and mitigation system with a deep level, multi-structure, multi-dimensional, and multi-decision making process in the future.