A Joint Numerical Simulation Method for Mine Seismic–Electric Coupling

With the continuous increase in coal mining depth in China, concealed geological structures—such as collapsed columns and faults—pose a severe threat to mine safety by triggering water inrush accidents. Mine DC resistivity methods exhibit high sensitivity to water-bearing characteristics but suffer from limited resolution, while mine seismic exploration offers superior resolution but weak sensitivity to water-rich bodies. Single-method inversion is inevitably plagued by solution non-uniqueness. This study aims to enhance the detection accuracy of concealed structures by implementing a joint seismic–electric inversion that exploits the complementary strengths of both methods. For the DC resistivity component, a forward model was established using the finite element method with unstructured meshes, and inversion was performed via Occam regularization. For seismic exploration, forward modeling employed curved-ray tracing, and inversion was conducted via the LSQR algorithm. Cross-gradient constraints were incorporated into the joint inversion to establish a structurally coupled framework. The novelty of this study lies in the integration of unstructured mesh discretization, curved-ray seismic tomography, and cross-gradient-constrained joint inversion for mine water detection. Numerical simulation results demonstrate that joint inversion effectively constrains the spatial extent of anomalies, accurately characterizes the morphology of multiple anomalous bodies and water-conducting fault channels, and substantially reduces solution non-uniqueness compared to single-method inversions. This research provides a reliable methodology for the refined detection of concealed hazard-inducing structures, offering considerable practical value for safeguarding coal mine safety.