Frontiers in Earth Science

To reveal the evolution law of coal skeleton deformation during the process of CO₂ flooding and displacing CH₄ in coal seam, a fluid-solid coupling mathematical model of CO₂ injection enhanced CH₄ drainage was established based on Fick’s law, Darcy’s law, ideal gas state equation, and Langmuir equation. Meanwhile, numerical simulations were carried out by implementing the mathematical model in the COMSOL Multiphysics. Results show that the CH₄ content of both regular gas drainage and CO₂ enhanced gas drainage gradually decreases with time, and the decreasing rate is high between 10 and 60 days. Compared with regular gas drainage, the efficiency of CO₂ enhanced gas drainage is more obvious with greater amount of CH₄ extracted out. When coal seam gas is extracted for 10, 60, 120, and 180 days, CH₄ content in coal seam is reduced by 5.2, 17.2, 23.6, and 26.7%, respectively. For regular gas drainage, the deformation of coal skeleton is dominated by the shrink of coal matrix induced by gas desorption, and the strain curve shows a continuous downward trend. For CO₂ enhanced gas drainage, the strain curve of coal skeleton showed a decrease—rapid increase—slow increase trend. The evolution of permeability is opposite to the evolution of coal skeleton strain. Higher gas injection pressure will lead to a greater coal skeleton strain. The pumping pressure affects the deformation of coal skeleton slightly compared with that of initial water saturation and initial temperature. Greater initial water saturation leads to larger deformation of coal skeleton in the early stage. The strain value of coal skeleton gradually tends to be consistent as gas injection prolongs. Higher initial temperature leads to greater reduction in coal skeleton strain when the gas injection continues. Research achievements provide a basis for the field application of CO₂ injection enhanced CH₄ drainage in underground coal mines.