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Preprint 11-101
VENTILATION AND CLIMATIC SIMULATION OF DRIFT/STOPE IN METAL MINES
R. Gunda, Univ. of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV
R. Grymko, Univ. of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV
D. Bahrami, Univ. of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV
G. Danko, Univ. of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV
ABSTRACT
Due to the rapidly increasing production rates and deepening of
mine working areas, there is a drastic rise in the number of thermal
issues to be addressed for maintaining a safe mine environment. As
high temperatures and humidity in underground mines could affect the
health and performance of workers, and ultimately the production rate,
it is necessary to provide a properly controlled safe environment.
The backfilling of stopes in metal, non-metal mines results in
different thermo-physical properties for the hanging, side and foot
walls, modeling of which is not provided by any existing mine climate
simulation software. This paper presents the modeling of such a single
stope using the MULTIFLUX (MF) software, developed at the
University of Nevada, Reno. A special case is presented in this paper,
where a case study from the Homestake mine in the US with a drift
and ramp connected to a stope with high Virgin Rock Temperature
(VRT) and various spot heat sources is modeled in MULTIFLUX and
CLIMSIM, and the results are compared against each other. Another
case is presented in which the stope of the previous case is modeled
with walls, each having a different set of thermo-physical properties.
These results are compared with the former results to analyze the
effect of anisotropic properties.
CLIMSIM
CLIMSIM is a commonly used mine climate simulation software
developed and marketed by Mine Ventilation Services, Inc (CLIMSIM,
1997). There are other mine climate simulation programs such as
VUMA, Ventsim, etc. Other than the variations in their user interfaces,
they all use the same solution method of Hardy Cross network solver
and Gibsons age function for strata heat. CLIMSIM was chosen due to
its long history of presence in this field and its ease of use. CLIMSIM
does not solve for airflow, which is assumed to be constant here.
CLIMSIM gives evaluation tools that take into account the heat and
moisture variables along selected mine entries.
The software divides the airways into axial elements and within
these elements, numerical routines are iterated to develop heat
balances between the strata heat and the heat transferred to the air
stream (CLIMSIM, 1997). The program determines the dry and wet
bulb temperatures resulting from the heat and moisture transport
effects. Heating or cooling sources can be expressed as linear or
isolated points for local attributes. This program uses radial heat
transport processes in an airway surrounded by a homogeneous rock
mass, whereas the mine airways in practice are surrounded by a rock
mass that is often varied in thermo-physical properties, also being
three - dimensional in heat transfer.
INTRODUCTION
The underground work environment must be safe and hazard
free. The ventilation systems must be analyzed by modeling before
they are built. This study builds upon previous studies (Danko and
Bahrami, 2008) that have been made to control the underground
climate conditions in a single airway. A case study of the Homestake
gold mine is presented in this paper as Case 1. This case study is
based on an example to demonstrate the ventilation of Homestake
th
mines mechanized stopes, taught during a short course at the 6 US
Mine Ventilation Symposium, Marks and Shaffner (1993). This model
consists of a drift and ramp connected to a stope. The model is
simulated in two parts, the drift and ramp together in the first and the
stope in the second one. Both parts are modeled in an environment of
o
high virgin rock temperatures, around 52 C and various spot heat
sources using CLIMSIM and MF.
MULTIFLUX
MF Version 5.0 software is used to solve the coupled transport
model for the solution of air flow, temperature, and humidity
distributions. Documentation for MF is extensive due to its
implementation as a hazardous waste facility evaluation software tool.
The MF model configuration involves setting up the airflow, heat
and moisture transport processes between various elements of the
model as well as heat and moisture sources. The schematic shown in
Figure 3 depicts a few types of connections involved in the MF model.
MF provides a solution to the coupled problem of air, heat, and
moisture transport, in both in-drift and in-rock model domains. The
coupled solution between the model domains is achieved by matching
temperature, vapor pressure, heat and moisture fluxes on the common
coupling surfaces on the drift wall. MF has two main modules, NTCF
(Numerical Transport Code Functionalization) and CFD. The
NTCFmodule (Danko, 2009) is used to model and represent the rock
mass, and CFD is used for modeling the airway domains. The heat
and moisture fluxes are balanced at the common surface temperature
and partial vapor pressure at each drift wall surface node and time
instant if a transient, time-dependent problem is modeled. The NTCF
(surrogate model of the rock mass thermal response) and CFD models
are coupled on the rock-air interface by MF.
Figure 1a. Schematic of the Drift and Ramp model Part 1 of Case 1.
Figure 2.
NUFT.
All the properties at the entrance and exit of the drift as per the results
are tabulated in Table 2.
Right
side
wall
Coupling
surface
34
32
Air in drivage
Left
side
wall
Temperature, ( o C )
30
Electrical
power load
station
Heat Convection
Thermal Radiation
Moisture Convection
28
26
Foot wall,
wet
24
100
200
300
400
500
600
Distance, ( m )
700
800
100
95
Relative humidity, ( % )
90
34
32
85
RH of air - MF
RH of dry wall - MF
RH of wet wall - MF
RH of air - Climsim
80
30
Temperature, ( o C )
1000
Figure 4b. Comparison of dry bulb, wet bulb, dry wall and effective
temperature distributions from MF and CLIMSIM - Part 1 of Case 1
(with a 20% reduced heat transfer coefficient in MF).
75
28
70
26
24
22
900
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
100
200
300
400
500
600
Distance, ( m )
700
800
900
1000
1000
Distance, ( m )
Figure 4a. Comparison of dry bulb, wet bulb, dry wall and effective
temperature distributions from MF and CLIMSIM - Part 1 of Case 1
(without any modifications).
All the necessary input data for the stope model setup are
tabulated in Table 1. The loading machine is modeled as a machine
spot heat source. The results of this section are compared along with
the results of Case 2, which is the stope with walls having different
thermo-physical properties, presented in Section 5.2.
Case2 Stope with walls of different thermo-physical properties
This case is a stope modeled with different thermo-physical
properties on each of the four walls. A stope with different thermophysical properties is often encountered in practical situations. The
stope modeled is the same one as in Case 1 part 2. The purpose of
analyzing a stope with different thermo-physical properties is to
27
26
25
24
23
36
22
34
21
Moisture content - MF
Moisture content - Climsim
32
Temperature, ( o C )
20
19
18
17
100
200
300
400
500
600
Distance, ( m )
700
800
900
26
22
Density (kg/m )
4.4
1.40*10
2693
1.5
-6
5.50*10
2279
2.9
-7
1.01*10
2486
2.24*10
40
60
Distance, ( m )
80
100
120
29
Temperature, ( o C )
28
27
26
ET - MF - Average conductivity case
ET - MF - Variable conductivity case
ET - CLIMSIM - Average conductivity case
25
24
23
22
20
40
60
Distance, ( m )
80
100
120
7.3
-6
20
30
Table 3. Data altered in the Case 2, stope with different properties for
each wall.
Hanging Left side Right Side
Foot
wall
wall
wall
wall
Diffusivity (m /sec)
Figure 7. Comparison of dry bulb and wet bulb temperature plots from
MF and CLIMSIM - Part 2 of Case 1 (Average conductivity case), and
MF - Case 2 (Variable conductivity case).
24
28
1000
Conductivity (W/m/ C)
30
-6
2797
W/m -K.The results for the two cases are tabulated in Table 4. The
strata heat values match reasonably well. The total strata heat is equal
to the latent strata heat in the MF results because the stope model in
the two cases is modeled with 100% wetness factor in the MF.
95
RH - MF - Average conductivity case
RH - MF - Variable conductivity case
RH - CLIMSIM - Average conductivity case
90
CLIMSIM
Dry bulb temperature
(oC)
Wet bulb temperature
(oC)
Relative Humidity
(%)
Moisture content
(g/kg)
Effective Temperature
(oC)
Total Strata Heat
(kW)
Strata Latent Heat
(kW)
Strata Sensible Heat
(kW)
Relative humidity, ( % )
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
20
40
60
Distance, ( m )
80
100
32.6
24.7
32.8
24.7
32.76
23.2
29.41
23.2
28.8
23.2
28.82
87.9
78.7
87.9
74.03
87.9
74.2
15.94
22.79
15.94
21.54
15.94
21.66
22.7
29.8
22.68
29.43
22.68
29.47
210
145.33
147.62
196.87
145.33
147.62
-13.63
REFERENCES
1.
20
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
19
18
16
15
20
40
60
Distance, ( m )
80
100
120
24.7
21
17
Exit
The research fund from NIOSH, USA under the grant number,
200-2009-30157 is gratefully acknowledged. The permission of using
NUFT from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is thankfully
appreciated. We thankfully acknowledge Dr. Pierre Mousset-Jones for
providing the measurement data from the Homestake Mine and
personal communications.
23
Variable Case
Entry
Exit
Entry
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
120
22
MF
Average Case
Entry
Exit