Experimental Study on Roof Structure Characteristics and Its Failure Pattern in Coal Roadway

Based on the investigation and statistics of logs of 211 bole holes and strata data from 79 roadways in 13 coal mines located in Xishan, Jincheng, Lu'an, Fenxi, and Huozhou in China, the roadways' roof structures were classified as multi-thin-layer, thin-thick combined layer, integrated thick layer, thick-coal layer, and cracked layer according to the geometric features and spatial strength distribution of surrounding rock. Then eight sub-categories were defined as different situations. And seven simulation modeling tests were carried out. The strata structures of these models were different from each other. At last, the relationship between roof structure and its failure pattern was discussed.