ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Geohazards and Georisks
This article is part of the Research TopicNatural Hazards Accompanying Underground Exploitation of Mineral Raw MaterialsView all 15 articles
Application of Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensing in Mining Pressure and Overburden Monitoring in Three-Dimensional Similarity Simulation Experiments
Provisionally accepted
- 1China Energy Group Shendong Coal Group Liuta Coal Mine, Ordos, Inner Mongolia 017209, China
- 2State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China
- 3College of Safety Science and Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Huludao, Liaoning, China
- 4Chongqing Bojian Technology Co., Ltd., Chongqing, China
- 5Chongqing University State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing, China
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The manifestation of mining pressure and overburden deformation in mining fields is one of the critical issues that cannot be avoided in the safe and efficient extraction of coal. Precise monitoring and early warning of these factors are essential for disaster prevention and control. This study, based on three-dimensional similarity simulation experiments, integrates PPP-BOTDA distributed fiber-optic sensing technology with a self-developed traction displacement device to construct an internal deformation monitoring system for the model. The paper proposes a method for identifying roof pressure and quantifying overburden failure height using the average variation of the Brillouin frequency shift measured by optical fibers.Experimental results show that changes in the vertical Brillouin frequency shift curve are related to the degree of deformation of the overburden layers in the mining field. The more intense the overburden movement, the larger the change in the Brillouin frequency shift curve. This method successfully identified 16 instances of pressure occurrences during the advancement of the working face, with the step change in the average variation of the Brillouin frequency shift curve closely matching the location of the pressure. The fiber-optic monitoring of overburden failure deformation height was found to be 7-15% higher than the surface observation results from the model, reflecting the high sensitivity of distributed fiber-optic sensing technology to small internal deformations in rock layers.The research results validate the accuracy and advancement of distributed fiber-optic sensing technology in monitoring mining pressure and overburden deformation in three-dimensional similarity simulation experiments. It overcomes the limitations of traditional monitoring methods that cannot obtain continuous deformation data from within, providing more options and security for safe mining and intelligent early warning systems.
Keywords: Distributed fiber-optic sensing, manifestation of mining pressure, Overburden deformation, PPP-BOTDA, three-dimensional similaritysimulation
Received: 29 Nov 2025; Accepted: 30 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Liu, Yuan, Jiang, Song, Qin, Chen and Bai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qiang Yuan
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