Procedia Earth

and Planetary
Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543 Science
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

The 6th International Conference on Mining Science & Technology

Application of fuzzy neural network in predicting the risk of rock

burst
Sun Jiana,b, Wang Lian-guoa,b,*, Zhang Hua-leia,b, Shen Yi-fengb
a
State Key Laboratory for Geomechanics & Deep Underground Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, Xuzhou 221008, China
b
School of Sciences, China University of Mining & Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China

Abstract

Rock burst is one of the coal and rock dynamical disasters that must be kept in mind in mining activities. With the increase of
mining depth, the risk of rock burst becomes increasingly great. At present, the risk prediction for rock burst mostly is still in the
stage of simple statistical study and single factor forecast, making the prediction precision be not a desired one. Using the
knowledge of fuzzy mathematics and neural network, we propose a fuzzy neural network risk prediction model for rock burst
trained with the improved BP algorithm based on the typical rock burst data. This method is an improvement of comprehensive
index judgment and multi-index judgment with fuzzy mathematics. Practical engineering applications in Sanhejian Coal Mines
indicate that this method is not only precise and simple, but also intelligent, with the predicted results well agreeing with the
practical conditions. Therefore, this method can be applied to the relevant engineering projects with satisfactory results.

Keywords: rock burst; risk prediction; fuzzy mathematics; BP neural network

1. Introduction

Rock burst is one of the coal and rock dynamical disasters, which is a serious threat to the safety production in
coal mine due to its sudden, instantaneous vibratility, and tremendous destructivity [1-4]. At present, the mechanism
of rock burst is still not very clear and precise forecasting rock burst is the precondition of prevention rock burst.
The prediction methods of rock burst mainly include the method of experience analogy analysis, drilling bits,
underground sound monitoring, micro-seismic monitoring, and water content rate determination and so on [2]. As
these risk prediction methods of rock burst are still in the stage of simple statistical study and single factor forecast,
we only consider the mining geology conditions and neglect the mining technical conditions, so the predicted results
are not satisfactory in a desired precision. With the increase of mining depth, the risk of rock burst becomes
increasingly great. How to precisely forecast and effectively prevent the rock burst is one of the important issues
studied in the fields of mining and geosciences both at home and abroad [1-3].

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-516-83885205; fax: +86-516-83885205.

E-mail address: lgwang@cumt.edu.cn.

1878-5220 © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeps.2009.09.085
 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543 537

In view of the complex nonlinear dynamics system of rock burst characterized by multi-input, multi-disturbance,
single-output, the main factors affecting the rock burst risk, both the mining geological conditions and the mining
technical conditions, are comprehensively considered. Using the knowledge of fuzzy mathematics and neural
network, we propose a fuzzy neural network risk prediction model of rock burst trained with the improved BP
algorithm based on the typical rock burst data. This method is an improvement of comprehensive index judgment
and multi-index judgment with fuzzy mathematics. Practical engineering applications in Sanhejian Coal Mine
indicate that this method is not only precise and simple, but also intelligent, with the predicted results well agreeing
with the practical conditions.

2. Fuzzy neural network model

2.1. Effect factors and their fuzzification

We selecte 10 factors including mining geological coditions and mining technical conditions as the major effect
factors of rock burst after statistical analysis for many field data, i.e., mining depth (m), coal seam thickness (m) and
its change, dip angle of coal seam (o), coal strength (MPa), roof strength (MPa), complex degree of geological
structure, roof management situation, pressure relief situation, and coal noise (shooting). The subordination degree
of the fuzzied 10 mainly effect factors with the fuzzy theory are presented as the input of neural network and the
four risk grades of rock burst (without rock burst risk, weak rock burst risk, moderate rock burst risk, and strong
rock burst risk) as the network output. Table 1 shows the corresponding relation between the effect factors of rock
burst risk (10 input vectors) and the four risk grades of rock burst (four output vectors) [1-3]. However, the
description of the four risk grades of rock burst given in Table 1 is a fuzzy concept without any strict determination
limit [5].

Table 1. Corresponding relation between the effect factors of rock burst and their four risk grades

The risk of rock burst

Effect factors of rock burst Without rock burst Weak rock burst Moderate rock Strong rock burst
risk (A) risk (B) burst risk (C) risk (D)
(1) Mining depth (m) ≤ 350 350 ~ 500 500 ~ 800 > 800
(2) Coal seam thickness (m) ≤ 0.7 0.7 ~ 1.5 1.5 ~ 2.2 > 2.2
(3) Coal strength (MPa) ≤ 12 12 ~ 16 16 ~ 20 > 20
(4) Roof strength (MPa) ≤ 20 20 ~ 40 40 ~ 60 > 60
(5) Thickness change of coal seam (m) no less big very big
(6) Dip angle of coal seam (o) no less big very big
(7) Geological structure simple general complex very complex
(8) Roof management situation very good good general bad
(9) Pressure relief situation very good good general bad
(10) Coal noise(shooting) no less more very more

Note: The strength refers to the uniaxial compressive strength.

According to the distribution characteristics of each effect factor of rock burst, here, we adopt the function of
falling semi-trapezoid distribution and linear triangle distribution as shown in Fig. 1.
The subordination degree of the continuous variables given in Table 1 can be directly determined by the
formulation method. We established the function relation between the subordination degree and the effect factors of
rock burst risk, which is the subordination function of rock burst effect factors. The analytic expression of
subordination function for each rock burst risk grade can be expressed as follows (1) ~ (4):
538 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543

1
Membership degree

0.75

WA
0.5 WB
WC
0.25 WD

0
S1 S2 S3 S4
Measured value x

Fig. 1. Subordination function of the effect factors



 1 x < S1  0 x < S1 or x ≥ S3

 S −x  x − S1
WA =  2 S1 ≤ x < S2 (1) WB =  S1 ≤ x < S2 (2)
 S 2 − S1  S 2 − S1
 x ≥ S2  S −x
 0  3 S 2 ≤ x < S3
 S3 − S2


 0 x < S2 or x ≥ S4  0 x < S3
 x − S 2 
 x − S3
WC =  S 2 ≤ x < S3 (3) WD =  S3 ≤ x < S 4 (4)
 S3 − S 2  S 4 − S3
 S −x  x ≥ S4
 4 S3 ≤ x < S 4  1
 S 4 − S3

In equations (1)~(4) above, WA , WB , WC and WD are the subordination degree of effect factors of rock burst that
belonging to the four risk grades of rock burst, which can be obtained directly by inputting the actual measured
value x . Otherwise, Si (i = 1, 2,3, 4) is the grading value of the effect factors of rock burst risk. According to the
determination limit of effect factors given in Table 1, the continuous variables effect factors of rock burst risk can be
fuzzied by using the fuzzy theory (effect factors (1)~(4) can be directly fuzzied by the determination limit). While
the discrete variables effect factors (factors (5)~(10)), the subordination degree can be determined by applying
expert evaluation method on the basis of the foundation principles of subordination degree. The calculated results of
the subordination degree for the discrete variables (factors (5)~(10) of given in Table 1) is shown in Table 2.

2.2. Improved BP network

An artificial neural network is a self-adapting, nonlinear dynamic system which has developed rapidly all over
the world since the 1980s and is extensively used in many fields, such as image, speech and voice recognition,
complex computations as well as trend prediction [6-13]. A back-propagation (BP) neural network is a kind of
multi-layered and feed forward network, and changes the input/output of a group of specimens into a nonlinear
optimization problem, which can be considered as mapping from a n-dimensional space to a p-dimensional space.
The network model structure of risk prediction of rock burst presented here is shown in Fig. 2, with one input layer,
one output layer and one or several hidden layers, each of which includes some neurons. An input signal first arrives
at hidden nodes where it is processed by an excitation function and is then transferred into the output layer nodes to
 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543 539

be processed, obtaining the final output results. In our prediction model, we adopt four-layer BP neural network,
with the excitation function for each neural network being selected as a sigmoid function f ( x) = (1 + e− x )−1 [14]. The
input layer includes 40 nodes, corresponding to the subordination degree of four different risk grades of 10 mainly
effect factors of rock burst. And the output layer includes 4 nodes, corresponding to the four risk grades of without
rock burst risk, weak rock burst risk, moderate rock burst risk, and strong rock burst risk. So, the input vector is a
40-dimensional vectors and a 4-dimensional vectors the output vector due to the risk grade of rock burst is regarded
as the object vector (see Fig. 2).

Table 2. Subordination degrees of the discrete variables of rock burst effect factors

Effect factors of rock burst

The risk of rock
Roof
burst Thickness change Dip angle change Geological Pressure relief Coal noise
management
of coal seam (m) of coal seam (o) structure situation (shooting)
situation
WA = 0.65 WA = 0.70 WA = 0.70 WA = 0.60 WA = 0.65 WA = 0.60
Without rock WB = 0.20 WB = 0.15 WB = 0.15 WB = 0.25 WB = 0.20 WB = 0.25
burst risk
(A) WC = 0.10 WC = 0.10 WC = 0.10 WC = 0.10 WC = 0.10 WC = 0.10
WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05
WA = 0.15 WA = 0.10 WA = 0.10 WA = 0.15 WA = 0.15 WA = 0.15
Weak rock burst WB = 0.60 WB = 0.65 WB = 0.65 WB = 0.55 WB = 0.60 WB = 0.55
risk
(B) WC = 0.20 WC = 0.20 WC = 0.20 WC = 0.20 WC = 0.20 WC = 0.20
WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.10 WD = 0.05 WD = 0.10
WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.10 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.10
Moderate rock WB = 0.20 WB = 0.20 WB = 0.20 WB = 0.20 WB = 0.20 WB = 0.20
burst risk
(C) WC = 0.60 WC = 0.65 WC = 0.65 WC = 0.55 WC = 0.60 WC = 0.55
WD = 0.15 WD = 0.10 WD = 0.10 WD = 0.15 WD = 0.15 WD = 0.15
WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05 WA = 0.05
Strong rock WB = 0.10 WB = 0.10 WB = 0.10 WB = 0.10 WB = 0.10 WB = 0.10
burst risk
(D) WC = 0.20 WC = 0.15 WC = 0.15 WC = 0.25 WC = 0.20 WC = 0.25
WD = 0.65 WD = 0.70 WD = 0.70 WD = 0.60 WD = 0.65 WD = 0.60

x1
y1
x2
y2
y3
x39
y4
x40 Output layer
Input layer
Hidden layer

Fig. 2. Structure of the presented BP network

Standard BP algorithms are based on the standard steepest descent method, which can modify the gradient of
network weights and threshold value by calculating the objective function [15]. The modified iterative process of
weight and threshold value of the standard steepest descent method can be expressed by W (k +1) = W (k ) + α D(W (k )) ,
540 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543

where W (k ) is the weight, α is the learning rate and D(W (k )) is the gradient of objective function. In actual
application, the algorithm of standard BP network is very simple. However, it also has inherent deficiencies, such as
all too easily reaching local minimum, and a slow convergence speed. When D(W (k )) is very small, the modified
weight is still small which shall lead to the decline of learning efficiency. Here, we adopt the improved fast training
algorithm, namely the BP algorithm with variable learning rate [16]. By introducing the coefficient of self-adapting
learning rate, the learning rate may change with the gradient of error curved surface, which can efficient pass over
the local minimum value, and fast convergence. Therefore, the BP algorithm with variable learning rate can obtain
an optimal learning rate in the local area to improve the convergence speed. The modified iterative process of
weight and threshold value of the BP algorithm with variable learning rate can be expressed by
W (k +1) = W (k ) + α (k ) D(W (k )) , where W (k ) is the vector of network weights and the threshold value, and α (k ) is
the variable learning rate, where α (k ) = 2λα (k − 1) and λ = sign[ D(k ) D (k − 1)] .

2.3. Network training

Neural network toolbox included in MATLAB has powerful and flexible function, and it does not require
complex calculating programming, so we adopt the MATLAB 7.0 neural network toolbox as the training
environment, and select 15-typical rock burst data (including both mining geological conditions and mining
technical conditions) as the training sample as shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Training samples

Mini Coal Roof Coal

Sam Coal Roof Thickness Dip angle Pressure
ng seam Geologica managem noise
ples strengt stren change of change of relief Risk grade
dept thickne l structure ent (shooti
No. h gth coal seam coal seam situation
h ss situation ng)
1 463 1.1 9 12 no less simple very good very good no without risk
2 552 1.4 6 18 less less simple very good good no without risk
3 520 1.3 12 10 no big general good very good no without risk
4 574 3.3 8 16 less less simple very good very good less without risk
5 558 1.0 13 23 less less general good good more weak risk
6 392 1.5 12 35 less big general good good less weak risk
7 478 1.3 16 40 big less simple good bad less weak risk
8 452 1.2 17 28 less big general good good less weak risk
9 713 2.3 19 56 less big complex good good more moderate risk
10 582 2.7 16 48 big big complex bad bad more moderate risk
very very
11 463 6.4 20 40 less big good good moderate risk
complex more
12 595 1.5 18 52 big very big complex bad bad more moderate risk
Very Very
13 892 3.2 22 60 big very big bad bad strong risk
complex more
Very Very
14 982 1.7 26 65 big big bad good strong risk
complex more
15 912 2.2 19 68 big very big complex good bad more strong risk
Very Very
16 958 2.8 20 61 big very big bad bad strong risk
complex more

Due to the hidden layer nodes and output layer nodes of network model adopting the logarithmic type sigmoid
function, the ideal output value of each neuron of output layer only tends to, but not reaches 1 and 0. So we assume
that the four risk grades (without rock burst risk, weak rock burst risk, moderate rock burst risk, and strong rock
burst risk) are corresponding to the four different vectors of network output: (0.9,0.1,0.1,0.1)T , (0.1,0.9,0.1,0.1)T ,
(0.1,0.9,0.1,0.1)T , and (0.1,0.1,0.1,0.9)T respectively.The data is processed by fuzzy theory to establish the BP
network model. Under the condition of hidden layer nodes with 12, the error level of the improved BP network can
reach the 0.0001 precision requirement, and its convergence curve is also shown in Fig. 3.
 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543 541

0
10

-1
10

-2
10
Error

Training curve
-3
10

-4
10
objective curve

0 400 800 1200 1600 2000

Iteration times

Fig. 3. Network train convergence curve

3. Example analysis

Sanhejian Coal Mine of Xuzhou Mining Group is a new mine that has been mined at the end of the 1980s, which
is designed mine with the capacity of 1.2 Mt/a, and now 1.6 Mt/a. Primary mineable coal seam in Sanhejian Coal
Mine are Shanxi Formation 7-coal and 9-coal and their buried depth is below -420 m, now the mining depth of
Sanhejian Coal Mine reaches below -980 m. With the increase of mining depth, the stress in coal and rock mass
becomes increasingly great, and the coal and rock dynamical disasters becomes increasingly great, so the risk of
rock burst becomes increasingly frequent. Therefore, rock burst is one of the main dynamical disasters in Sanhejian
Coal Mine. Table 4 shows the mining geological coditions and mining technical conditions of part working face of
Sanhejian Coal Mine. Table 5 shows the comparison between the practical rock burst conditions and the predicted
results of rock burst by the improved BP algorithms. We can know from Table 5 that the forecast results calculated
by the fuzzy neural network are quite close to the practical conditions, indicating that this method can be well
applied to the relevant engineering with satisfactory results.

Table 4. Effect factors of rock burst of Sanhejian Coal Mines

Coal Roof
Worki Coal Roof Thickness Dip angle Pressure
Ming seam Geological managem Coal noise
No. ng stren strengt change of change of relief
depth thickne structure ent (shooting)
face gth h coal seam coal seam situation
ss situation
1 7109 621 1.2 13 28 less less complex general general more
2 7110 625 1.4 15 34 big very big complex bad general very more
3 7125 668 0.8 5 13 no no general good good less
4 7141 722 2.5 24 63 very big very big very complex bad bad very more
5 7202 784 1.6 16 24 big less very complex good good very more
6 7204 820 2.4 17 72 big big complex bag bad more
7 9101 830 1.6 82 41 very big very big very complex general bad very more
8 9108 836 0.8 8 12 no big simple good very good less
9 9112 840 2.6 34 65 big very big complex bad general very more
10 9202 850 2.2 28 12 very big big very complex general general very more
542 S. Jian et al. / Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 1 (2009) 536–543

Table 5. Comparison between predicted results and practical conditions

No. Working face
1 7109 working face
2 7110 working face
3 7125 working face
4 7141 working face
5 7202 working face
6 7204 working face
7 9101 working face
8 9108 working face
9 9112 working face
10 9202 working face
Predicted risk of rock burst Actual risk of rock burst
moderate rock burst(0.099, 0.098, 0.897, 0.101) moderate rock burst
moderate rock burst(0.103, 0.099, 0.899, 0.102) moderate rock burst
weak rock burst(0.098, 0.901, 0.097, 0.101) weak rock burst
strong rock burst(0.102, 0.098, 0.097, 0.901) strong rock burst
moderate rock burst(0.097, 0.099, 0.899, 0.103) moderate rock burst
strong rock burst(0.099, 0.098, 0.097, 0.903) strong rock burst
strong rock burst(0.102, 0.099, 0.098, 0.899) strong rock burst
without rock burst(0.902, 0.098, 0.097, 0.101) without rock burst
strong rock burst(0.099, 0.097, 0.098, 0.903) strong rock burst
strong rock burst(0.102, 0.098, 0.097, 0.901) strong rock burst

4. Conclusions

In this paper, we propose a fuzzy neural network risk prediction model of rock burst using the knowledge of
fuzzy mathematics and neural network. This risk prediction model selects typical rock burst data as the training
samples with the improved BP algorithm. This method is an improvement of comprehensive index judgment and
multi-index judgment with fuzzy mathematics. Practical engineering applications in Sanhejian Coal Mines indicate
that this method is not only precise and simple, but also intelligent, with the predicted results well agreeing with the
practical conditions. Therefore, this method can be applied to the relevant engineering projects with satisfactory
results.

Acknowledgements

Financial support for this work, provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50874103), the
Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (KB2008135) and the National Basic Research Program of China
(2006CB202210), as well as by the Qing-lan Project of Jiangsu Province, is gratefully acknowledged.

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