• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.38-58
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• 2018

The ventilation system plays a crucial role in underground mine safety. The main objective of the ventilation system is to supply sufficient air to dilute the contaminated air at working places and consequently provide tenable environment during the normal operation, while it also should be capable of controlling the fire propagation and facilitate rescue conditions in case of fire in mines. In this study, a smoke control fan was developed for the auxiliary ventilation as well as the fire smoke exhaust. It works as a free-standing auxiliary fan without tubing to dilute or exhaust the contaminated air from the working places. At the same time, it can be employed to extract the fire smoke. This paper aims to examine the smoke control efficiency of the fan when combined with the current ventilation system in mines. A series of the site experiments and numerical simulations were made to evaluate the fan performance in blind entry development sites. The tracer gas method with SF6 was applied to investigate the contaminant behavior at the study sites. The results of the site study at a large-opening limestone mine were compared with the CFD analysis results with respect to the airflow pattern and the gas concentration. This study shows that in blind development entry, the most polluted and risky place, the smoke fan can exhaust toxic gases or fire smoke effectively if it is properly combined with an additional common auxiliary fan. The venturi effect for smoke exhaust from the blind entry was also observed by the numerical analysis. The overall smoke control efficiency was found to be dependent on the fan location and operating method.