Thermal Management and Ventilation Optimization for Underground Mining
A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 145
Special Issue Editor
Interests: ventilation and air conditioning; heat hazard control; geothermal resource utilization; fire prevention and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Underground mining operations face escalating thermal challenges due to increasing depth, high-power equipment usage, and geothermal gradients, compounded by confined spaces where heat dissipation is critically constrained. Effective ventilation and thermal management are paramount to ensuring worker safety, equipment reliability, and operational efficiency in these extreme environments. In such settings, heat accumulation from machinery, rock strata, and human activity can rapidly degrade working conditions, risking heat stress, equipment failure, and reduced productivity. Traditional ventilation methods often struggle to balance energy efficiency with adequate cooling, especially in deep or complex mine layouts. Innovations in airflow design, cooling technologies, heat recovery systems, and predictive modeling are urgently needed to address these multidimensional challenges.
This Special Issue seeks cutting-edge research on integrated strategies for thermal control and ventilation optimization in underground mines. We invite contributions on novel system designs, advanced simulations (CFD, AI-driven models), sustainable cooling technologies, heat mitigation materials, case studies, and regulatory frameworks. Submissions may also address synergistic solutions for air quality control, energy recovery, and automation-enhanced ventilation. While it is focused on mining applications, this issue welcomes interdisciplinary insights from fields such as tunnel engineering, geothermal energy, and restricted-space environmental control.
Dr. Yu Xu
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- underground space
- thermal environment management
- ventilation and air conditioning
- ventilation and heat transfer
- energy saving
- mine geothermal
- heat hazard control
- mine ventilation
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