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Prediction Model for Coal Spontaneous Combustion Based on SA-

SVM
Jun Deng, Weile Chen,* Caiping Wang, and Weifeng Wang
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ABSTRACT: Accurate predictions of the coal temperature in coal

spontaneous combustion (CSC) are important for ensuring coal
mine safety. Gas coal (the Zhaolou coal mine in Shandong
Province, China) was used in this paper. A large CSC experimental
device was adopted to obtain its characteristic temperatures from
the macroscopic characteristics of gas production. A simulated
annealing-support vector machine (SA-SVM) prediction model
was proposed to reflect the complex nonlinear mapping between
characteristic gases and the coal temperature. The risk degree of
CSC was estimated in the time domain, and the model was verified
by using in situ data from an actual working face. Furthermore,
back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and single SVM
methods were adopted for comparison. The results showed that the BPNN could not adapt to the small-sample problem due to
overfitting and the output of a single SVM was unstable due to its strong dependence on the setting of hyperparameters. Through
the SA global optimization process, the optimal combination of hyperparameters was obtained. Therefore, SA-SVM had higher
prediction accuracy, robustness, and error tolerance rate and better environmental adaptability. These findings have certain practical
significances for eliminating the hidden danger of CSC in the gob and providing timely warnings about potential danger.

1. INTRODUCTION by oxidation causes the temperature to exceed the gas

Coal spontaneous combustion (CSC) can cause the loss of
coal resources and lead to gas explosions in mines, thereby
threatening the safety of personnel and equipment and
seriously damaging the environment. However, due to the
hidden characteristics of residual CSC in the gob area, which
are not easily detected by humans, and the limited methods for
estimating and analyzing the risk degree of CSC, the disaster
detection time has an inherent lag, causing considerable safety
risks.1,2 Therefore, it is important in disaster prevention and
control to analyze the characteristics of CSC and establish an
early warning model of the risk degree so that spontaneous
combustion can be effectively monitored and early warnings
can be established. Based on the coal-oxygen adsorption
theory, it is easy to generate heat via the physical and chemical
adsorption of oxygen in the air and redox reactions under
normal pressure and temperature conditions.3 If the heat
generation rate between coal seams is greater than the heat
dissipation rate, as heat accumulates and the characteristic
temperature of CSC is reached, oxygen consumption will
intensify and the reaction rate will accelerate.4−6 Finally, the
ignition point of coal will be reached, and spontaneous
combustion will occur.7
The critical and dryness temperatures of the CSC are the
first and second acceleration points of the coal oxidation
reaction process, respectively.8,9 With the continuous increase
in the coal chemical adsorption degree, when the heat released
© 2021 The Authors. Published by
American Chemical Society
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desorption temperature and the dynamic equilibrium temper-
ature of CO2 desorption, the critical self-ignition temperature
(CSIT), which is characterized by increases in the CO and
CO2 concentrations and a decline in the O2 concentration, is
reached.10,11 Small molecular hydrocarbons such as C2H4 and
C2H6 begin to appear when spontaneous combustion temper-
ature reaches the dryness temperature.12,13 Due to the increase
in oxygen consumption in the air, the oxidation of coal is not
sufficient. From a macroperspective, the O2 concentration
drops sharply, CO and CO2 concentrations increase sharply,
and the temperature alteration ratio increases.14
Many scholars have conducted in-depth research on the
factors that affect CSC. Wen et al. mainly considered changes
in the CO concentration during the CSC process.15 Ma et al.
studied the effect of the air humidity on CSC and concluded
that the concentration of coal oxidation products increases
with increasing humidity.16 Chen et al. studied the changes in
the characteristic parameters, such as the temperature, gas
Received: January 11, 2021
Accepted: April 9, 2021
Published: April 21, 2021
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concentration ratio, oxygen consumption rate, thermal
intensity, and limit parameters, in the early stage of CSC
from a macroscopic perspective.17 Ma et al. studied the effect
of gas on the oxidation characteristics of coal, and the results
showed that the CO/CO2 production and oxygen con-
sumption of coal samples in methane-containing air flows
were higher than those in methane-free air flows.18 Yi et al.
studied the temperature, thermal product, and gas product
evolution trends in the spontaneous combustion period of
coal; they found that at a low heating rate, the characteristic
temperature point slowly decreased, which made CSC more
possible to occur.10,19 These studies provide a theoretical basis
for an early identification model of CSC, and this paper is
based on these studies.
CSC is a pretty complex chemical and physical process.
Because the relationship between the degree of spontaneous
combustion and the multi-index gases of spontaneous
combustion is difficult to be determined, the chemical and
physical mode has not been established by academic circles.
Adopting mathematics prediction methods could reveal the
nonlinear process of CSC. However, from global research, the
main problems in the prediction of CSC in the gob are as
follows:
1. The existing models do not effectively describe complex
nonlinear processes. CSC is an extremely complicated
physical and chemical process, and no intuitive physical
and chemical model has been established in academia
because it is difficult to determine the corresponding
relationship between the degree of spontaneous
combustion and the multicomponent-index gases of
CSC.
2. Few data-mining studies have focused on CSC.
Currently, most prediction methods are used to simulate
the entire spontaneous combustion cycle of coal and
obtain the critical values of the component gases and
related indexes through statistical analysis, and these
methods lack further data mining.
3. The accuracy (ACC) of the existing prediction
regression models, most of which are lag models, is
low. These models cannot estimate the risk degree of
CSC and have a low fault tolerance and poor noise
resistance.
In this paper, macroscopic predictions of the risk degree of
CSC are made by constructing natural combustion laboratory
equipment with different coal thicknesses, air supply rates, fully
mechanized caving face parameters, and other internal and
external conditions; this approach creates an environment
similar to the actual environment to simulate the cycle of
spontaneous coal combustion at low temperatures. Addition-
ally, the characteristics of CSC are determined, and the
characteristic temperature of CSC is obtained based on a coal-
oxygen multistage chemical reaction mechanism. Combined
with the above conditions, a regression prediction model of the
risk degree of CSC is established, and the performance of this
model is tested. Finally, the model is verified using in situ data
recorded at an actual working face. The accuracy and
robustness of the model are determined through a
comprehensive analysis of the related evaluation indexes.
Back-propagation neural networks (BPNNs) have notable
advantages in processing high-dimensional data and perform-
ing nonlinear mapping.20 However, the empirical risk cannot
converge to the expected risk based on the full probability
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when dealing with small-sample problems such as CSC
prediction; additionally, overfitting can occur for the test set,
and the gradient descent method makes parameter con-
vergence slow.21−23
A support vector machine model can be used as a regression
prediction model in various fields with effective adaptation for
small-sample problems.24−27 However, due to the existence of
a single support vector machine, the model accuracy is strongly
dependent on the hyperparameters, and the model has no
global optimization ability in the hyperparameter space, so the
model fitting results are usually unstable.28 In recent years,
many scholars have improved the inherent defects of single
support vector machines. Zhang et al. used a support vector
machine optimized with the K-fold cross-validation algorithm
to predict the ash content of crude coal and used a genetic
algorithm for feature selection.29 Li et al. used a genetic
algorithm to optimize the punishment parameters, insensitive
loss function, and kernel function parameters in a support
vector machine, and a short-term prediction model of power
generation energy was established.30 Wei et al. adopted
improved gray wolf optimization (IGWO) and obtained the
global optimal values of punishment parameters based on the
information exchange and sharing among artificial wolves with
different responsibilities, where each individual behavior
decision of the collaborative group was used to search for
the best path.31 Nieto et al. used particle swarm optimization
(PSO) to predict the remaining service life of aircraft engines;
in the paper, PSO was used to find the global minimum points
of kernel parameters in a hyperparametric space.32 Chen et al.
adopted the time-varying PSO (TVPSO) algorithm to
optimize parameters and select features simultaneously, and a
weighting function was considered; the TVPSO-SVM model
performed well based on the accuracy (ACC) classification
index.33 Chen et al. proposed an improved artificial swarm
algorithm to optimize the weight of the penalty function, which
improved the recognition accuracy and convergence perform-
ance of the model for fault diagnosis from images.34
The improvements to the inherent defects of SVMs not only
increased the ability to minimize structural risk for small-
sample problems but also effectively solved the subjectivity and
instability issues caused by blindly setting hyperparameters.
This paper presents a prediction method for the risk degree of
CSC based on an SA-SVM model. Kirkpatrick et al. first put
forward an annealing simulation algorithm, and it has been
proved to meet the optimal requirement in partial. This
method structure is simple and can solve complex nonlinear
optimization problems. In the study, we have contrasted the
prediction results between BPNN, SVM, and SA-SVM, and the
least-square error evaluation index was employed to determine
the accuracy and stability of the models. The results show that
the SA-SVM model has a higher prediction accuracy and
higher stability than a BPNN and single support vector
machine. It has important practical significance for early
prediction, early warning of coal spontaneous combustion and
environmental safety judgment, scientific relief decision-
making, and safety disaster relief of the fire zone.
2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
2.1. Data and Model Settings. 2.1.1. Experimental
Results and Samples. According to the analysis of the CSC
samples from the Zhaolou coal mine, the maximum CH4
concentration appeared when the temperature was 25−35 °C.
As the temperature increased and the gas desorption speed
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Figure 1. Gaussian curve fitting based on the experiment.

Table 1. Sample Composition

sample O2 N2 CO CO2 CH4 C2H4 C2H6 CO2/CO C2H6/C2H4 coal temperature
1 20.4 78.89 281 1400 0.25 12 27 4.98 2.25 33.4
2 19.8 79.75 228 1800 0.21 30 52 7.89 1.73 37.5
3 19.6 79.88 509 2300 0.23 28 78 4.52 2.79 42
4 20 79.43 507 2400 0.27 16 68 4.73 4.25 40.2
5 20.16 79.34 594 2100 0.18 23 79 3.54 3.43 41.4
6 20.7 79.01 222 1400 0.13 12 29 6.31 2.42 43.3
‴ ‴ ‴ ‴ ‴
35 0.01 98.66 28 2500 1.08 8 50 89.29 6.25 36.1

Figure 2. Effective samples and trends based on the experimental data.

accelerated, when the temperature was 35−45 °C, the
concentrations of CO2 and CO reached minimum levels, and
the concentration of CO2 remained largely unchanged during
this period. The characteristic temperature was estimated
based on the above macroscopic observation indexes and the
results of this experiment. The results showed that the critical
temperature appeared in the range of 50−65 °C and the
dryness temperature appeared in the range of 95−105 °C. The
highest temperatures in the furnace were selected as the
reference values, and the temperature changes in the furnace
over time are shown in Figure 1. Because the data was splashes,
the linear fitting is the most appropriate for variation. The data
was fitted by a Gaussian function. Compared with polynomial
fitting, the Gaussian fitting has the advantage of simplicity in
calculating the integral and cannot overfit, so we adopt
Gaussian to fit temperature vs time.
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The concentrations of O2, N2, CO, CO2, CH4, C2H4, and
C2H6 and the gas concentration ratios of CO2/CO and C2H6/
C2H4 were selected as the input indexes of the SVM
model.35,36 The coal temperature corresponding to each
measurement index was taken as the output expectation of
the model. The paper used the traversed spatial data of the
CSC state to obtain samples that satisfied the independent,
identically distributed conditions. After experimental determi-
nation, 75% of the samples were selected as training samples,
and the remaining 25% were selected as test samples. The
measured partial gas concentration, gas concentration ratios,
and coal temperature were considered as a sample point, as
listed in Table 1. The first column was the serial number of the
sample point, the data corresponding to {3x} (x = 1−11) was
the test set, and the data of the remaining points was the
training set.
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Figure 3. Gas concentration ratio and trends based on the experimental data.

Figure 4. Effective samples and trends based on the in situ data.

Figure 5. Gas concentration ratio and trends based on the in situ data.

The characteristic gas concentrations of the CSC compo-
nents change with the coal temperature, as shown in Figure 2;
we know that as the temperature rises, the concentration of
gases CO, CH4, C2H4, C2H6, and CO2 had upward trends, the
concentration of O2 had a downward trend, and the
concentration of N2 was basically constant. The gas ratio
changes with the coal temperature, as shown in Figure 3. We
know that C2H6/C2H4 appeared later than C2H4, and as the
temperature rose rapidly, it reached its maximum in the critical
temperature range and then decreased rapidly. At the
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beginning of the experiment, CO2/CO first decreased and
then increased with the increase of coal temperature, and as
the temperature continued to rise, the CO2/CO showed a
trend of rapid decline.
2.1.2. In Situ Data. After determining the occurrence of
spontaneous combustion near the gob open-off cut, relatively
accurate in situ data were obtained with a beam tube
monitoring system and chromatographic analysis. Additionally,
corresponding disaster control measures were taken to
effectively restrain the further expansion of the fire zone.
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Figure 6. Coal temperature trend based on the in situ data.
Figure 7. Iterative cost function trend.
Figure 8. Variations in parameters based on the experimental data.
Therefore, actual gob data could be divided into three stages:
normal circumstances, spontaneous combustion and a
governance stage, and return to normal. After analysis, several
sets of data for the working face under crossheading were
selected as the field data sample set. Effective samples and
trends based on in situ data are shown in Figure 4.
Additionally, the gas concentration ratios and corresponding
trends based on in situ data are shown in Figure 5, and the coal
temperature trend based on in situ data is shown in Figure 6.
Under normal circumstances, the temperature of coal
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increased slowly with the increase of temperature, and its
highest temperature reached 43 °C. In the case of inhibition
after spontaneous combustion, the coal temperature increased
rapidly at first and then decreased slowly, and its highest
temperature reached 80 °C. After returning to normal, the coal
temperature showed a trend of gradual decline. The
concentration variation of gases CO, CH4, C2H4, C2H6, and
CO2 was consistent with coal temperature. The concentration
of O2 was basically consistent under normal conditions and
rapidly decreased when coal began to spontaneously combust.
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Figure 9. Variations in parameters based on the in situ data.

Figure 10. Scatter plot of predicted and target coal temperatures based on the three aforementioned models.

Figure 11. Box plot of the absolute error for the aforementioned models in the training and testing samples based on the (a), (b) oxidation
experiment data and (c), (d) in situ data.

2.2. Modeling Process. The kernel function parameters simulated annealing algorithm, and its mathematical expression
and insensitive loss function of the SVM were optimized with a process is in the Supporting Information. Thereinto, the
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penalty coefficient C is the parameter of the kernel function Table 2. Summary of the Prediction Results Based on the
through supportive SVM, which means tolerance for error. The Three Aforementioned Evaluation Indicators
higher the C, the more prone it is to the overfitting
MAPE
phenomenon; the smaller the C is, the more likely the MAE (%) RMSE R2 (%)
underfitting phenomenon is to occur. ε is the insensitive loss experimental data BP 0.48a
1.45 a
0.69 a
99.9446a
function parameter, ensuring the existence of the global 3.7b 7.4b 5.13b 96.6541b
minimum solution and the optimization of the reliable SVM 1.42a 4.17a 1.73a 99.6573a
generalization bound. Through an iterative process, the 2.57b 6.4b 3.61b 98.3419b
optimal parameter combination was obtained as the output. SA-SVM 0.82a 2.56a 1.13a 99.8548a
The iterative cost function trend in simulated annealing 2.13b 5.74b 2.47b 99.2224b
optimization is shown in Figure 7. Moreover, the variations in in situ data BP 2.39a 4.42a 4.65a 90.4574a
the parameters based on experimental data are shown in Figure 9.18b 15.33b 9.85b 37.5141b
8, and those based on in situ data are shown in Figure 9. SVM 8.58a 14.76a 9.61a 59.2487a
The cost function of structural risk minimization iteratively 8.65b 14.09b 10.14b 33.8152b
converged, and the system reached the global minimum state SA-SVM 2.53a 5.13a 3.48a 94.6728a
and froze. The parameters in this system state were determined 3.56b 6.36b 4.6b 86.3676b
to be the optimal parameters. a
Represent the training samples. bRepresent the testing samples.
2.3. Prediction Results of SA-SVM. The algorithm
combined with the least-squares SVM was compiled on the training set, a serious overfitting phenomenon occurs for the
MATLAB platform. A radial basis function (RBF) was selected test set, which leads to high error for the test set.
as the kernel function of the SVM.37 The simulated annealing Compared with the BPNN method, the single SVM displays
algorithm provides a nonconvex optimization method that can better performance for small-sample problems. However,
avoid the local minima of the cost function and obtain the because hyperparameters are difficult to determine, the
global minimum point. After the energy system was optimized regression results are strongly dependent on human factors,
by the algorithm, the kernel function parameter and insensitive leading to inferior accuracy and stability for the test set
loss value were found to be 959.968 and 5.7, respectively. The compared to the results of the SA-SVM method for the test set.
kernel function parameter and insensitive loss value of the Because there is more noise in the in situ data than in the
model for the actual ignition working face were 112.618 and experimental data, the stability of the single SVM method
190.8, respectively. Then, nine-dimensional training samples further decreases. Based on comprehensive analysis, there are
representing the risk degree of CSC were input into the SA- two main reasons for the weak generalization ability of the
SVM model for training. model that lead to overfitting:
A regression model analysis of a single SVM and a 1. The inherent structure of a network. We cannot
BPNN38,39 was also performed. The BPNN model adopted a accurately estimate the nonlinear complexity of the
single hidden layer. To increase the fitting accuracy of the physical processes, such as the CSC process, and the
model, 10 neurons were used for feature extraction in the matching degree of the network structure. Specifically, at
hidden layer. The single SVM method did not use an the beginning of network design, the number of free
optimization algorithm to optimize relevant parameters. A network parameters (weight and bias, kernel function
scatter plot of the predicted and target coal temperatures based parameters, and insensitive loss function) cannot
on the three aforementioned models is shown in Figure 10. For correspond to the number of existing training sets
training samples, the results of the BPNN mode are uniformly based on actual CSC data.40
distributed along the zero-error line y = x and are superior to 2. There is noise in the actual data. The network loads the
those of the other two modes. For test samples, the results of learned CSC characteristics as the synaptic weights and
the SA-SVM mode are uniformly distributed along the zero- biases of the BPNN and SVM parameters. When the
error line y = x and are superior to those of the BPNN mode, network yields unexpected results due to noise in the
which means that the BPNN mode shows a serious overfitting input samples, the corresponding characteristics will be
phenomenon. The box plot of the absolute error for the stored in the parameter histories. The poor noise-
aforementioned models in the training and testing stages is filtering ability of the model will lead to high error for
shown in Figure 11. For both training samples and test the test set and a reduction in the generalization ability.
samples, the box of the SA-SVM model is relatively flat and the According to the output results of the SA-SVM model, the
data distribution is concentrated, indicating that the SA-SVM mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error
model has good stability. A summary of the prediction results (MAPE), and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the
based on the three aforementioned evaluation indicators is prediction based on experimental data are 2.13 °C, 5.74%,
shown in Table 2. and 2.47, respectively. No matter what types of data, eq 7, R2
The results show that the BPNN method performs better of SA-SVM is minimal, which shows that the model has high
than the other two methods for the training set, with MAE = degree of linearization and strong antinoise ability. Compared
0.48 and RMSE = 0.69 based on the experimental data and with that of the single support vector machine method, the
MAE = 2.39 and RMSE = 4.65 based on the in situ data. These accuracy of the proposed method is improved, and this
findings indicate that the BPNN performs better than the other approach has obvious advantages over the BPNN method.
two methods based on both the training accuracy and stability. Notably, the maximum absolute error predicted by the BPNN
However, the error indexes for the test set are significantly method is 14.163 °C, and the variance is 200.59. The
higher than those of the other two methods. In this case, maximum absolute error predicted by the ordinary SVM
although the BPNN achieves the best performance for the method is 8.54 °C, and the variance is 72.93. The maximum
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Figure 12. Experimental device and prediction method for coal spontaneous combustion.
absolute error predicted by the SA-SVM method is 4.685 °C,
and the variance is 21.95 °C. Additionally, the maximum MAE
of the test samples predicted by the SA-SVM method is much
smaller than that of other methods, suggesting that the SA-
SVM model has good robustness to the problem. Moreover,
the MAE, MAPE, and RMSE based on the data from the
ignition working face are 3.56 °C, 6.36%, and 4.6, respectively,
which are the lowest error values among all of the methods.
Thus, the SA-SVM method is most suitable for data with
certain levels of noise.
3. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents an SA-SVM regression model for CSC
prediction. The model can estimate the CSC risk degree in the
time domain based on the relevant CSC characteristics. A large
CSC experimental device is used to simulate an actual ignition
situation. Additionally, the characteristic temperature points of
CSC were identified by simulating the CSC process. Using the
SA-SVM model to extract the characteristics of CSC, the
complex nonlinear relationships associated with CSC were well
fitted. Finally, the SA-SVM model was verified using in situ
data from an actual ignition working face, and the model
effectively and dynamically tracked different ignition stages and
responded quickly to determine the risk degree of CSC. This
work has certain practical significances for ensuring safe
production and reducing the cost of manual monitoring.
Because the coal composition, ventilation, and surroundings
are quite different in each coal mine, there are differences in
the nonlinear relationship between gases and CSC degree.
Hence, the mode set up in the manuscript is only used in the
Zhaolou coal mine, and when establishing the prediction
model of CSC in other coal mines, the coal sample data of
corresponding coal mines should be used. The detailed
conclusions are as follows:
1. The BPNN method performs better than the other two
methods for the training set. However, when facing
small-sample problems and with some noise in the
samples, a serious overfitting phenomenon occurs, which
results in poor performance for the test set.
2. The single support vector machine model displays better
performance than the BPNN in small-sample problems
and has obvious advantages. However, the model relies
on the setting of hyperparameters, which is highly
subjective.
3. Compared with other machine learning methods, the
SA-SVM model yields higher regression accuracy and
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robustness. The penalty function parameters and
insensitive loss function are globally optimized, and
the SVM is based on a simulated annealing method. This
approach ensures that the optimal parameter combina-
tion is obtained for the SVM model to avoid the issues
associated with single SVM modeling.
4. EXPERIMENTS AND METHODS
4.1. Oxidation Experiment for Coal. CSC is an
extremely complicated process that releases characteristic
gases with different concentrations according to the degree
of spontaneous combustion, such as CO, CO2, CH4, C2H4,
C2H6, and other gases.35 With increasing coal temperature, the
gas concentration of each component will change. In this
paper, the coupled relationship between characteristic gases
and the coal temperature in the process of CSC is used to
predict the risk degree of CSC. In fact, CO, alkanes, and
alkenes change significantly near the characteristic temperature
point. Therefore, according to the experiment conducted in
this paper, the characteristic temperature point of CSC is
estimated.41
First, coal was collected from the Zhaolou coal mine
(Shandong) and crushed using a jaw crusher. The pulverized
coal sample was weighed and packaged in XKIII equipment
to simulate different coal thicknesses, air leakage rates, oxygen
supply rates, heat storage levels, and other conditions. Thus,
the CSC cycle was simulated, and the low-temperature
spontaneous combustion characteristics of coal were deter-
mined. Next, the gases collected at different coal temperatures
were quantitatively analyzed.42 Finally, machine learning
training and test samples were obtained, and the SA-SVM
model was used to extract the features of the samples and make
predictions in the time domain. Conceptual illustrations of the
experimental device and CSC prediction method are shown in
Figure 12.
The laboratory equipment consisted of a furnace body, a
control system, and a test system. The furnace body was
cylindrical with an outer diameter of 1.8 m, an inner diameter
of 1.2 m, and a height of 2.2 m. The effective coal storage space
was 1.63 m3, and the total experimental coal mass was
approximately 1791 kg. The furnace wall was composed of an
insulation layer and a temperature control layer. Additionally,
several thermistor probes were arranged to detect the
temperature in the furnace in real time. The center shaft of
the furnace was provided with a gas sampling pipe for gas
sampling and testing.
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The control system consisted of two parts: a temperature
control system and an air supply control system, which were
automatically adjusted by the industrial control machine
according to the experimental process. The temperature
control system maintained the balance between heat storage
and heat release, which ensured the accuracy of the
experimental results. The air supply control system was used
to adjust the air supply volume at a relatively constant level and
adjust the temperature and humidity of the air before entering
the furnace to the same temperature and humidity as the air
inside the furnace.43
The experimental coal samples were placed in the furnace,
and the relevant parameters are shown in Table 3. The initial
Table 3. Coal-Related Parameters
initial
coal sample void average particle air supply temperature
origin content size (d50) (m3 h−1) (°C)
Zhaolou coal 0.404 4.765 0.10−1.60 6.8592
mine
temperature of the experiment was 20.7 °C, which was the
same as that of the gob area in the Zhaolou coal mine. The
coal samples underwent a natural warming process when the
temperature and air supply control systems were started. The
temperature and the characteristic gas changes during the CSC
experiment were continuously tracked. A certain sample
mixture of gases was extracted from the sampling tube by a
manual sampling method each day and sent to an SP3430 gas
chromatograph for gas composition and concentration
analyses. The characteristic gas samples were O2, N2, CO,
CO2, CH4, C2H4, and C2H6.36,44
4.2. In Situ Observation Data. In this paper, to verify the
application of the SA-SVM prediction model for an actual
ignition working face with considerable environmental
disturbances, the CSC characteristics for an actual ignited
working face were used as inputs to further verify the accuracy
and robustness of the model. The source of ignition of the
working face is shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13. Schematic diagram of the fire source location.
The elevation of the working face is −432.0 to −352.0 m,
the working face area is approximately 452118.2 m2, and the
average thickness of the coal seam is 8.45 m, which is a stable
extrathick coal seam. Due to equipment debugging issues and
other reasons, the advance speed of the working face was
slow.45 When the working face was pushed to 30 m,
spontaneous combustion smoke was detected in the return
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airway, and a fire location was found in the coal body at the top
of the open-off cut. The occurrence of a CSC event was
confirmed.
Compared with the experimental data, the in situ data have
more noise interference and are influenced by uncontrollable
environmental factors; therefore, the prediction model must
have a high generalization adaptability. This paper adopts the
in situ data in the following case. The characteristic gas
concentrations of all components in CSC, encompassing the
whole process from normal operation to spontaneous
combustion and the governance stage and finally then back
to normal after disaster management, are used as the inputs of
the SA-SVM model. Model comparisons are performed to
determine whether this model provides higher prediction
accuracy and robustness in practical applications compared to
other models.
4.3. SA-SVM Model. Before using the support vector
regression (SVR) method, kernel function parameters and the
insensitive loss function should be determined.37,46−48 A
simulated annealing algorithm was used to optimize the
above two parameters and search for the optimal combination
of SVM parameters within a certain range to improve model
performance.
The simulated annealing algorithm was first proposed by
Kirkpatrick et al.49 and has been widely used in the
optimization of structures due to its advantage of avoiding
local minimum points.50−55 The simulated annealing algorithm
optimizes the loss function for a physical system with multiple
degrees of freedom in thermal equilibrium and at different
finite temperatures. The annealing process was based on the
Monte Carlo method adopted by Metropolis et al.56 Given a
low-energy state describing a computational system, at the
lowest temperature, the system molecules are rearranged in a
certain structure. The statistical dynamics characteristics
indicate that the energy associated with the temperature T
and molecules remaining in state r satisfies the Boltzmann
probability distribution
ij E(r ) yz
expjjj− zz
j kBT zz
1
k {
P{E ̅ = E(r )} =
Z(T ) (1)
where E(r) is the energy of the state r, kB is the Boltzmann
constant, E̅ is a random variable related to the molecular
energy, and Z(T) is the partition function. Equation 1 means
that the higher the temperature is, the greater the cooling
probability of the primary energy difference is and the lower
the temperature, the less probability there is to be a cooling. As
the temperature slowly decreases, the above rearrangement
process is repeated until the system state converges to the
minimum value. The solution at the minimum value is saved as
the global optimal solution. When seeking the most optimal
solution by the annealing simulation algorithm, it is necessary
to introduce the natural mechanism of a physical system
annealing process to prevent the local optimal solution. The
state of physical annealing corresponds to the solution of the
optimization problem. The energy function corresponds to the
objective function of the optimization problem. The lowest
energy state corresponds to the optimal solution of the
optimization problem. In this paper, samples correspond to
problem instances, energy corresponds to the structural risk
minimization cost function of support vector machines, and
the temperature is the control parameter.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c00169
ACS Omega 2021, 6, 11307−11318
ACS Omega http://pubs.acs.org/journal/acsodf Article

To satisfy the finite time approximation property and

accelerate the convergence rate of the algorithm, the
temperature parameter T must be discretized. The annealing
schedule of the cooling rate was determined, and the cooling
schedule of parameter T was defined as follows.49
Tk = αTk − 1 , k = 1, 2, ··· (2)

In this paper, the temperature drop coefficient α is 0.9, and

the partition function is constant at 1. Because the system
perturbations produce energy fluctuations that result in E1 <
E2, the probability of molecules remaining in a state of low
energy is greater than the probability of molecules remaining in
a state of high energy. When there are two different energies in
the state space, the Boltzmann probability associated with the
lowest energy state is greater than 1/2, and the new solution in
the low-energy state is considered acceptable according to this
probability. Additionally, because the acceptance probability is
not 1 in the nonlimiting state, that is, the system has a certain
probability of accepting the deteriorating solution in the high-
energy state, the algorithm can avoid local optima to some
extent.
P{E ̅ = E1} − P{E ̅ = E2} > 0 (3)

For the nonminimum energy state, the distribution

probability of molecules in the increasing energy state is
monotonically reduced by the above equation. The lower the
temperature is, the higher the probability of achieving a low-
energy state is. In the limit state, only the probability of the
lowest energy is not equal to zero. When the system solution
no longer avoids local optima with high probabilities, the state
is considered stable, and the system freezes. In turn, the
annealing process stops, and the optimized parameters are the
global optimal parameters. The implementation steps of the
SA-SVM algorithm are shown in Figure 14. The steps in
simulated annealing optimization are shown in the Supporting
Information algorithm pseudocode. The main steps are as
follows:
Step 1: The initial temperature T = T0, the initial state r = r0,
and the initial energy E(r) = E(r0).
Step 2: A new state r1 formed by random disturbance, and
determine whether the temporary state satisfies e = E(r1) −
E(r). If e ≤ 0, then a new state is accepted; if e > 0, look for a
new solution by the Metropolis principle.
Step 3: Determine whether k is less than the preset number Figure 14. Algorithm flow chart.
of iterations; if not, return to Step 2; if so, analyze whether T is
the minimum value of the annealing schedule: if not, update n
1 yi − di
parameter T according to the annealing schedule and return to MAPE = ∑ × 100%
Step 2, and if so, stop the calculation. n i=1
yi (5)
Step 4: The optimized parameters are taken as the optimal
parameters of the SVM model, and the modeling and 1
n
prediction are carried out. RMSE = ∑ (yi − di)2
4.4. Performance Indicators. To reflect the accuracy of n i=1 (6)
the SA-SVM model in predicting the coal temperature in
spontaneous combustion, this paper uses the average mean n n
absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error R2 = 1 − ∑ (di − yi )2 / ∑ (di − d ̅ )2
(MAPE), and root-mean-square error (RMSE) to describe i=1 i=1 (7)
the training set and testing set errors of the BPNN, SVM, and
where yi is the predicted output of the model (°C), di is the
SA-SVM.57 The performance indicators are defined as shown
average of the temperature value (°C), di is the average of the
in eqs 4−7
temperature value (°C), and n is the total number of samples.
n The smaller the value of eqs 4 and 5, the higher the accuracy
1
MAE = ∑ |yi − di| and robustness. The closer eq 7 is to 1, the better the
n (4)
i=1 linearization of the model.
11316 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c00169
ACS Omega 2021, 6, 11307−11318
ACS Omega
■
http://pubs.acs.org/journal/acsodf
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
*
sı Supporting Information
The Supporting Information is available free of charge at
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.1c00169.
SA-SVM algorithm pseudocode and steps for establish-
ing a hyperplane based on a support vector machine
(PDF)
■ AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
Weile Chen − School of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi’an
University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, P. R.
China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of
Coal Fire, Xi’an 710054, P. R. China; orcid.org/0000-
0002-7874-4398; Email: 450365218@qq.com
Authors
Jun Deng − School of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi’an
University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, P. R.
China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control of
Coal Fire, Xi’an 710054, P. R. China
Caiping Wang − School of Safety Science and Engineering,
Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, P.
R. China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control
of Coal Fire, Xi’an 710054, P. R. China
Weifeng Wang − School of Safety Science and Engineering,
Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, P.
R. China; Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control
of Coal Fire, Xi’an 710054, P. R. China
Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c00169
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work has been supported by the National Key Research
and Development Program (Grant No. 2018-YFC-0807900),
the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi
Province (Grant No. 2017ZDCXL-GY-01-02-03), the Na-
tional Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 5197-
4234), the Science and Technology Innovation Talent
Promotion Plan of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2019KJXX-
050), and the Excellent Youth Science and Technology
Foundation of Xi’an University of Science and Technology
(Grant No. 2019YQ2-03).
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