Minimizing DPM pollution in an underground mine by optimizing auxiliary ventilation systems using CFD

Diesel particulate matter (DPM) is a carcinogen to humans. Underground miners have the potential to expose to higher DPM concentrations since the working environment is confined. To address the DPM pollution issues and optimize the auxiliary ventilation system, a development face in an underground mine in Western Australia was taken as the physical model and the computational fluid dynamics was used to analyse the airflow characteristics and DPM concentration distributions in the development face. Then, the obtained simulation results were validated with the onsite measurement data. The DPM concentration distributions under 3 scenarios, with different duct lengths, were further compared with the AIOH standard for DPM (0.1 mg/m(3)). The results found that the current auxiliary ventilation system was not able to reduce the DPM concentration effectively, and the ventilation system with a duct length 5 m longer than the actual duct length provided a better DPM dilution performance. The finding of this paper is helpful for effective DPM control and auxiliary ventilation design for the further mining activities.