NIOSHTIC-2 No. 20034158


Advances in Grid-Based Numerical Modeling Techniques for Improving Gas Management in Coal Mines

2008

Publication first page
Document cover page
Click the image to enlarge

Effective gas management in coal mines, as well as proper ventilation design, is very important for maintaining the safety of underground coal miners. Advances in numerical modeling techniques have enabled evaluations of the coal mining environment using advanced grid designs and computed gas distributions through detailed mathematical models. These models help engineers to "see" the "unseen" areas of the mine through visualization of the data and ultimately help improve worker safety. This paper summarizes the modeling efforts conducted by NIOSH in the U.S. and CSIRO in Australia to address various gas management issues encountered in longwall mines. The modeling studies involved two of the most widely used grid-based techniques, namely computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and numerical reservoir modeling. This paper discusses the application of these techniques for gob inertization and gas control for spontaneous combustion, pre-mining degasification of coalbeds, gob gas venthole design and performance evaluation in longwalls, and gas management during development mining.

Author(s):Karacan-CO, Ren-TX, Balusu-R
Reference:Proceedings of the 12th U.S./North American Mine Ventilation Symposium, Reno, Nevada, June 9-11, 2008. Wallace, Jr. KG. ed., Reno, NV: University of Nevada - Reno, 2008; :313-320

   aigbn (PDF, 462 KB)


A link above requires the Adobe Acrobat® Reader.
You can download a reader for free from Adobe through our Accessibility/Tools page.
Get Adobe Reader
Page last updated: September 17, 2008
Content Source: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Mining Division