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14 pages, 2680 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fire Scenarios Inside a Room-and-Pillar Underground Quarry Using Numerical Modeling to Define Emergency Plans

by Amir Nematollahi Sarvestani, Pierpaolo Oreste and Sandro Gennaro

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(7), 4607; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13074607 - 5 Apr 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2308

Underground fires are still one of the most significant risks in mines today. In order to manage this risk, it is necessary to know the potential evolution of a fire and the effects it can have on people and other objects. Ventilation plays an essential role in the development of a fire; it also influences the propagation of toxic fumes and the variation of temperatures in all other areas of a mine. Currently, it is possible to jointly analyze, through numerical modeling, the ventilation circuit and a fire for different possible scenarios in order to define, in detail, the emergency plans that need to be adopted. In this paper, a numerical study was conducted via the use of Ventsim Software (an integrated mine and tunnel ventilation numerical package that is able to analyze airflows, pressures, heat, gases, and fires along all of a defined circuit over time using an iterative procedure to solve Kirchhoff’s current law). Furthermore, in this study, it is illustrated how the joint numerical modeling of the ventilation circuit and fire, when applied to an underground gypsum mine in the northwest of Italy, provides all the elements necessary to define the safety procedures that should be adopted in standard conditions as well as during an emergency due to a fire. More specifically, it was possible to identify suitable escape routes depending on the location of the possible fire and the time available for the staff to be able to evacuate safely. Full article

(This article belongs to the Topic Recent Advances in Structural Health Monitoring)

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7 pages, 4082 KiB

Open AccessProceeding Paper

Ventilation Design Modeling and Optimization for an Underground Bauxite Mine

by Maria Karagianni and Andreas Benardos

Mater. Proc. 2021, 5(1), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2021005029 - 24 Nov 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4221

Abstract

Underground bauxite mining exploitation is a challenging environment for ventilation. In this paper, such a complex underground ventilation network is modeled in detail using the Ventsim software. The network and its characteristics are selected and developed through the software, followed by their calibration and validation against actual measurements of both airflow quantity and quality which have been carried out at the mine site. This model constitutes the base of the new ventilation design for the future mine expansion. The recommendations and the characteristics for the optimization of the new proposed design are finally presented in detail. Full article

(This article belongs to the Proceedings of International Conference on Raw Materials and Circular Economy)

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9 pages, 1894 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Calibration of Mine Ventilation Network Models Using the Non-Linear Optimization Algorithm

by Guang Xu, Jinxin Huang, Baisheng Nie, Duncan Chalmers and Zhuoming Yang

Energies 2018, 11(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/en11010031 - 23 Dec 2017

Cited by 32 | Viewed by 6771

Abstract

Effective ventilation planning is vital to underground mining. To ensure stable operation of the ventilation system and to avoid airflow disorder, mine ventilation network (MVN) models have been widely used in simulating and optimizing the mine ventilation system. However, one of the challenges for MVN model simulation is that the simulated airflow distribution results do not match the measured data. To solve this problem, a simple and effective calibration method is proposed based on the non-linear optimization algorithm. The calibrated model not only makes simulated airflow distribution results in accordance with the on-site measured data, but also controls the errors of other parameters within a minimum range. The proposed method was then applied to calibrate an MVN model in a real case, which is built based on ventilation survey results and Ventsim software. Finally, airflow simulation experiments are carried out respectively using data before and after calibration, whose results were compared and analyzed. This showed that the simulated airflows in the calibrated model agreed much better to the ventilation survey data, which verifies the effectiveness of calibrating method. Full article

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