This work presented an investigation into the gas explosions that occur in coal mines. The propagation of the explosion waves was studied by using large eddy simulation (LES) coupled with weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) finite difference scheme. The results showed that the destructive effects of gas explosions were mainly caused by the high-speed airflow, and the high pressure of the shockwave. The comparison between the numerical and experimental results confirmed that the overpressure and airflow velocity initially increased, and then decreased slightly after the explosion has occurred in the coal mine, and their maximum values increased with the increase of the gas accumulation zone. The flame length was found to be far greater than the length of the original gas accumulation area, and the ratio of them is 5-7 which is related to the gas accumulation area. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.