Aiming at the problem of spontaneous combustion of coal relics caused by the overburden fracture network penetrating the upper and lower coal seams in the process of shallow-buried and short-distance coal seam mining, the 31114 working face of Lijiahao coal mine was used as the research background to study the characteristics of overburden transport and fracture development in shallow-buried and short-distance coal seam mining by using physical similar simulation test; the fractal dimension and image processing techniques were used to quantify the overburden fractures; the classical mechanical models of "solid support beam" and "masonry beam" were combined to analyze the causes of fracture dynamic evolution. The results show that: (1) Before the key seam fracture, the stress in the upper rock seam only changes in a small amount, and the stress in the lower rock seam evolves similarly to the single coal seam mining; when the key seam fracture is broken, the stress in the upper and lower rock seams will change by jumps. (2) The fractal dimension of the fissures rised from 1.4 to 1.5, the total area of fissures is increased from 16,638 pixels to 17,707 pixels, and the total length is increased from 2217 to 3071 pixels; after the main key layer of the overlying rock is broken, the fractal dimension of the fissures is reduced from 1.56 to 1.5, and the total area of fissures is reduced from 31,451 pixels to 29,089 pixels, the total length has increased from 5657 to 6619 pixels. (3) Before the key layer between the coal seams is broken, it will be suspended to form a "fixed beam". After the first break, the broken rock above it will settle synchronously until the rock blocks form a hinged structure and then collapse. After the fall stops, the key layer periodically breaks to form a "masonry beam" structure, and the overlying stratum settles synchronously.
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