CFD-Based Evaluation Of Ventilation Parameters For Methane And Thermal Environment Control In Underground Coal Mines

Abstract

Effective underground mine ventilation is fundamental to maintaining safe working conditions because it 
simultaneously controls methane accumulation, removes heat, supplies adequate oxygen, and supports continuous 
mining operations. This empirical and simulation- In this study, an adaptation of a model based study for the 
effective simultaneous control of methane concentration and mine heat has been carried out focusing on the 
optimization process of key ventilation parameters in an underground coal-mining environment. This examines 
the impact of total air quantity, air velocity, fan capacity, ventilation pressure and cooling duty on the methane 
concentration and wet-bulb temperature. A total of 240 combinations to represent synthetic operating conditions 
were generated in the form of a structured experimental dataset based on selected ventilation parameters in 
different mine operating states. We used computational ventilation modelling to compare baseline and optimized 
configurations with correlation and regression analyses conducted to highlight the parameters most strongly 
associated with methane and thermal control. The findings demonstrate that the larger effective total ventilation 
and the appropriate face velocity mitigate significantly accumulate of methane gas ad thermal stress. The 
optimized setting reduced methane levels to a mean of 0.58% from the baseline (0.96%) albeit with this wet-bulb 
temperature falling from 31.8°C to 28.9°C; while overall estimated ventilation power demand was minimized by 
about 14.6% against an over-ventilated '"safety'" setting. Methane concentration was correlated most strongly to 
air quantity (r = −0.78) and wet-bulb temperature showed the strongest relationship to air velocity (r = −0.69). 
Results from the regression indicated that the combination of ventilation parameters accounted for 68.4% of the 
within-farm variance in the methane concentration and 61.7% of variation in wet-bulb temperature. Results 
indicate that ventilation should be optimized, not maximized; airflow needs to be matched with methane emission 
regions, heating environments and production scenarios. That kind of holistic methodology can enhance the 
health and safety on mines, while steering clear of needless ventilation consumption oh energy.