Author(s)

S. Torno, J. Toraño & J. Velasco

Abstract

When a mining roadway and tunnel is being advanced or has already been carried out, the air circulation direction can be inverted for different reasons, the most frequent being, the outburst of pollutant gases and the effect of a fire. This reversion effect can become serious for the workers. The behaviour analysis of this ventilation by conventional methods presents deficiencies which can be improved by CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) by using Ansys CFX 10.0 software with the establishment of prediction models. The CFD modelling were validated by mining roadway measurements using anemometers, methanometers and oxymeters. It has been proved that the mining roadway or tunnel longitude reached by the reversion of airflow is reduced by installing an auxiliary forcing ventilation overlapped with the main ventilation. Additionally, it has been determined that the longitude is not reduced by increasing the main ventilation velocity. Likewise, different tests to check the effect of different types of auxiliary ventilation system over the roadway longitude reduction, have been carried out. Keywords: underground ventilation, reversion of airflow, CFD3D (Computational Fluid Dynamics), mining roadway. 1 Introduction In the driving tunnel with a longitudinal type of ventilation, the air flows along intake airway (tunnel or roadway 1) to the working area and the contaminated air passes back along return airways (parallel tunnel or mining roadway 2). The roadway (3) joins (1) and (2), it can be seen in figure 1. In this working area, a significant pollutant gas (methane) emission has been produced [1, 2] which has

Keywords

underground ventilation, reversion of airflow, CFD3D (Computational Fluid Dynamics), mining roadway