Dr Baotang Shen

Dr Baotang Shen is a Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Energy. Dr Shen obtained his first degree in mining engineering in 1985 in China. He obtained his PhD in rock mechanics in Sweden in 1993, and then worked with Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) as a research fellow in 1994-95. Since 1995 he has been with CSIRO and focused on issues related to highwall mining Geomechanics, mining engineering and mining environment. Dr Shen is specialised in mining engineering, monitoring instrumentations, numerical modelling, backfill technologies and rock fracture mechanics. Since 2004, he has been leading CSIRO’s research team on mine subsidence control and mine remediation, and developed the non-cohesive backfill technology for old mine remediation. The team has completed several major projects funded by Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) and BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal and Queensland State Government on subsidence control and remediation technologies for a number of mines in Australia. Dr Shen is an influential expert in fracture mechanics modelling. He has initiated and been leading an international collaboration project on coupled fracture mechanics modelling, which is participated by 13 institutes from Germany, Finland, Switzerland, South Korea, China, USA and Australia. He is also the leading author of the recently published book “Modelling Rock Fracturing Processes”.

Key achievements

(1). World leading research in Coupled Rock Fracture Mechanics

Coupled M (mechanical) – T (thermal) – H (hydraulic) – C (chemical) processes in rock masses have been the focus of research for many years with significant advances achieved. Understanding and predicting the effects of the interaction between explicit rock fracturing, fluid flow, temperature change and chemical transport, or F (fracturing) – T (thermal) – H (hydraulic) – C (chemical) process, are key challenges for geothermal energy extraction, coal bed methane extraction and mining at great depth.

Dr Shen has been a pioneer in developing a fracture mechanics approach to coupled rock fracturing processes. He invented a new fracture criterion (F-criterion) and developed a numerical code FRACOD which is believed to be one of a very few numerical codes that can realistically predict the explicit rock fracturing process due to tensile and shear mechanisms on an engineering scale. Building on his success and reputation in rock fracture mechanics modeling, he established a CSIRO-led international collaboration project in 2007 which has been participated and financially supported by a growing number of international universities and research organizations. The project has been extended and expanded twice in 2011 and 2016 based on the successful outcomes from the previous phases. To date, the international collaboration project includes 13 universities and organisations from Australia, Germany, USA, Finland, Switzerland, South Korea and China with a total external funding of close to $2Million, within which $850K new funding was generated during the project expansion in 2016. World reputable organisations such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA), Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich (Switzerland), GFZ German Research Centre for Geoscience (Germany), Chinese Academy of Science Wuhan Institute (China) are among the key participants in the project.

As the results of the internationally recognized research in rock fracture mechanics, Dr Shen and his collaborators (Stephansson (Germany) and Rinne (Finland)) has published a book entitled “Modeling Fractured Rocks – A Fracture Mechanics Approach Using FRACOD” in 2013. The book has been rated as the top 25% most downloaded book in 2015 by Springer.

(2). Research leadership of CSIRO’s research in coal burst

Coal burst is a violent ejection of coal from the coal seam into the underground openings (such as roadway and longwall face) under high stresses. It is particular dangerous to mine personnel due to its suddenness unpredictability. Two fatalities from coal burst occurred in Australia in 2014 while many more occurred in overseas deep mines. Coal burst is currently a key industry issue in Australia due to the increasing mining depth and hence it becomes a key research area for ACARP.
Dr Shen initiated the coal burst research in CSIRO in 2015 and, in collaboration with University of New South Wales, he successfully obtained support by ACARP for two research projects during 2016 and 2017 respectively in coal burst. He has also been regularly invited to ACARP’s coal burst task force meetings and workshops to provide technical expertise in this area. With his leadership and help, CSIRO has obtained four externally funded research projects in coal burst since 2016, totaling about $800K external funding. Within the last two years, CSIRO’s research in coal burst has grown from nearly zero to becoming one of the major research areas in the coal mining program.

(3). Development of mine subsidence control technology

Mining-induced ground subsidence can significantly increase mining costs and cause environmental concerns where major surface structures, facilities and natural environments need to be protected from ground movements.

Dr Shen has been leading a study contracted by the Queensland State Government Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) since 2009, to find a remediation method for old bord and pillar mine voids at Collingwood Park, Ipswich, and to conduct ongoing monitoring and assessment on the mine stability. The impact of this study on both the local community and the state government is highly significant as it concerns the safety of many local residents located above the old underground mines. This high profile task is highly politically sensitive for both government and the local community. The QLD government’s granting of this project to CSIRO and continuous support to the project team over the last 8 years clearly demonstrates excellent performance of the research team under Dr Shen’s leadership. To date, the total external funding for this project is approximately $2.1Million, of which $961K new fund was generated within the last five years.

(4). Development of technologies of integrated extraction of coal and methane for deep coal mine

Underground coal mines worldwide are gradually moving into deeper and more challenging environment, and mining at depth close to 1000m is becoming the norm in many coal fields. Deep mining faces a critical challenge in terms of mine safety and productivity due to the high ground stress, high gas pressure, low permeability, and high risk of coal and gas outburst. Developing innovative technology for integrated extraction of coal and gas is critically important for deep mines as it not only reduce the gas related risk underground and enhance productivity, but also reduce greenhouse gas emission and increase the utilization of valuable energy resources.

Dr Shen has been a key member of three major Huainan projects led by Dr Hua Guo to develop the integrated co-extraction technologies. In all the three projects he provided the critical contribution in designing and coordinating the comprehensive field geotechnical monitoring programs. Thanks to the successful field monitoring exercise, the CSIRO project team has for the first time obtained very valuable field data of the overburden response to longwall mining in deep ground. These data played a critical role in the development of a new theoretical model for gas extraction during deep longwall mining.

The research results from the Huainan projects have so far obtained significant interests in the research community. A paper was published in the International Journal on Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences in 2o12 and it has received a high citation rate since its publication. More importantly, the knowledge and theories developed from these projects are providing guidance to the mining operations at Huainan coal mines and helps to reduce the gas related risks. These knowledge and theories have also helped the CSIRO team led by Dr Hua Guo to develop the CMATSP Bulga Project and achieved outstanding success so far in reducing underground gas concentration and increasing the production rate by more than 100%.

(5). Development of novel stress determination method for geothermal energy

Geothermal energy is a clean energy resource that currently gains strong interest in Australia. Extracting geothermal energy for electricity generation often requires drilling deep boreholes into high temperature rock formations (or hot rocks), and using hydraulic fracturing techniques to create a permeable underground heat exchange reservoir. The orientation of the reservoir, which is vitally important to the efficiency of the energy extraction, depends on the relative magnitudes of the horizontal principal stresses to vertical stress. Hence understanding the in situ stress regime is critically important. Since the geothermal reservoir is often at a depth greater than several kilometres, direct measurement of the in situ stresses by conventional methods such as hydraulic fracturing is extremely difficult.

To address this important issue, Dr Shen has developed an innovative method of determining in situ stress magnitudes using borehole breakout data from a geothermal well. Although this concept has been known for some time, there have not been many successful cases reported of using breakout data to determine the stress magnitude. Dr Shen’s key contribution in this work has been to develop a novel method of using fracture mechanics principles to actually describe the relationship between borehole breakout and in situ stress magnitudes. Using this method, he has successfully predicted the in situ stress magnitude at Habanero 1 Well which is the Australia’s first deep geothermal well.

This work has been strongly commended by Dr Doone Wyborn, Chief Scientist of Geodynamics Ltd. who has commented in an Earthmatters (CESRE magazine)[March 2010] article, “Dr Shen’s model has provided the only reliable alternative method of quantifying the stress conditions. The relative values of the three principal stress axes determined by Dr Shen were verified by the results of the reservoir stimulation process.” “Dr Shen has carried out world-leading research in a field that is likely to expand considerably in the future as we grapple with the needs of the new low carbon age” [Wyborn, CSIRO promotion referee’s report 2010]

(6). Development of an innovative Integrated Roof Monitoring System

Roof fall is a major hazard in underground coal mines in Australia. It can cause fatalities, injuries and significant economic losses. Real-time monitoring and early detection of imminent roof fall allowing preventative action to be taken, will increase safety margins and bring significant economic benefit to the mining industry. Traditional methods that rely on the displacement monitoring are inadequate in providing early warning of roof falls. To address this long-term industry need, Dr Shen led a five-year research project in collaboration with JCOAL and Hokkaido University in the period 2003-2007. In this study, Dr Shen and his fellow CSIRO researchers successfully developed the CSIRO’s Integrated Roof Monitoring System. The system has for the first time integrated displacement, stress and seismic monitoring, and is suitable for early warning of imminent roof failures in underground roadways with diverse geological conditions. The system has been used in two Australian mines (Ulan and Oaky North) and three Chinese mines (Quqiao, Xieyi and Zijin) to monitor the roof stability with successful outcomes. It is also drawing strong interest from Shandong University of Science and Technology (SDUST) to implement the real-time roof monitoring system in an undersea tunnelling project in China, and China Coal Research Institute (Chongqing) for commercializing this system in China.

(7). Highwall Mining Geomechanics

Dr. Shen is an innovative researcher who can come up with cost-effective solutions to industry problems. He has provided the highwall mining industry with the first and only effective method of designing highwall mining entries with stable spans. His original research has played a critical role in the successful introduction of highwall mining to BHP Coal’s Moura Mine. Over 3.5 million tonnes of coal, worth approximately $150 million, has been mined at Moura with highwall mining technology and Dr Shen’s contribution has been crucial to this achievement.

Dr Shen has demonstrated the ability to identify key issues in problem solving, and to provide simple, elegant solutions based on innovative and creative science. His brilliant development of simple analytical models for unsupported span stability is in the very best tradition of applied mathematical engineering. This work is highly innovative and now represents the industry standard in unsupported span stability assessment for highwall mining. Dr Shen has planned and conducted five case studies of major highwall mining panel failures. The results of these case studies directly helped the mining industry to avoid such failures in the future.

Dr Shen is a co-author of the recently published book "HIGHWALL MINING – Applicability, Design & Safety". (by Porathur, Pal Roy, Shen, Karekel, 2017): CRC Press (Publisher), 323p. ISBN 978-1-138-04690.