The application of multi-branch pinnate drilling has great prospects in gas control. Although there are many studies on the parameters of multi-branch plume drilling, the mathematical model used in the study is still not sufficient for the addition of the slippage effect and thermodynamic changes. In this paper, a thermal–fluid–solid coupling model is used to study the influence of branch angle and branch length on the extraction effect in high-gas and extra-thick coal seams. The reliability of the model is verified by simulating an onsite extraction environment to fit the onsite gas production rate. Under identical simulation conditions, the experiment investigated the gas extraction performance of boreholes with varying branch angles (30°, 40°, 50°, and 60°) and branch lengths (50 m, 75 m, 100 m, and 125 m). The results show that temperature affects the dynamic viscosity of gas, which in turn affects the flow rate. The slippage effect affects permeability. When the branch angle is less than 50°, the increase in the branch angle can expand the control range of drilling. By continuing to increase the angle, the improvement in the extraction effect is weakened. As the branch angle exceeds 50° and continues to increase, the branch borehole progressively approaches the edge of the coal seam. At this time, the overall control range of the borehole is greatly increased, and the gas extraction effect is improved. The increase in the branch length leads to a considerable improvement in the extraction effect. When the branch length is below 100 m, the improvement in extraction efficiency diminishes progressively with increasing branch length. This is because the effect of increasing the branch length on improving the overall control range of the borehole is weakened. When the branch length exceeds 100 m and continues to increase, the branch borehole approaches the edge of the coal seam. The overall control effect of drilling has been greatly improved. The extraction effect of boreholes has increased significantly compared with before.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.