Minerals, Metals and Materials Technology Centre, National University of Singapore, Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore; Mechanical Engineering, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, P.O. Box 54224, United Arab Emirates.
Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3450 University Street, Frank Dawson Adams Bldg Room 115, Montreal H3A2A7, QC, Canada.
Sci Total Environ. 2014 May 15;481:317-34. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.02.058. Epub 2014 Mar 5.
Diesel engine is widely used in underground mining machines due to its efficiency, ease of maintenance, reliability and durability. However, it possesses significant danger to the miners and mining operations as it releases hazardous gases (CO, NO, CO2) and fine particles which can be easily inhaled by the miners. Moreover, the diesel engine consumes significant amount of oxygen which can lead to insufficient oxygen supply for miners. It is therefore critical to maintain sufficient oxygen supply while keeping hazardous gas concentrations from diesel emission below the maximum allowable level. The objective of this study is to propose and to examine various innovative ventilation strategies to control oxygen and hazardous gas concentrations in underground mine to ensure safety, productivity and cost related to energy consumption. Airflow distribution, oxygen and hazardous gas dispersion as well as ambient temperature within the mining area are evaluated by utilizing the well-established computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The results suggest that our newly proposed ventilation design performs better as compared to the conventional design to handle hazardous gases from diesel emission.
由于其效率、易于维护、可靠性和耐用性，柴油机在地下采矿机械中得到了广泛应用。然而，它对矿工和采矿作业存在重大危险，因为它会释放出危险气体（CO、NO、CO2）和细微颗粒，这些气体和颗粒很容易被矿工吸入。此外，柴油机消耗大量氧气，可能导致矿工缺氧。因此，在保持柴油机排放的危险气体浓度低于最大允许水平的同时，维持充足的氧气供应至关重要。本研究的目的是提出并检验各种创新的通风策略，以控制地下矿山的氧气和危险气体浓度，确保安全、生产力以及与能耗相关的成本。利用成熟的计算流体动力学（CFD）方法评估了矿区内的气流分布、氧气和危险气体的扩散以及环境温度。结果表明，与传统设计相比，我们新提出的通风设计在处理柴油机排放的危险气体方面表现更好。
