FRACTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FRACTURE DISTRIBUTION IN COAL

The fractal characteristics of the fracture distribution in Coal seam No.V₈ in Gaozhung Coal Mine, Pingding-shan, are studied with the fractal theory. The results indicated that the fracture distributions are of well statistically self-simi-larity, described by using fractal dimension. The contour map of the fractal dimension can efficiently reflect the complexity, the range and the direction of fracture distributions. The fractal dimension is a comprehensive index of the length, number and homogeneity of the fracture distribution, which varies with the variations of above stated parameters.