Numerical Simulation Study of the Optimal Parameters for Dust Reduction by an External Air Curtain (EAC) in Continuous Mining Tunnel
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 5
Abstract
Coal dust in continuous mining tunnels is extremely hazardous to drivers and other workers. In order to solve this problem, a continuous mining tunnel model is built based on computational fluid dynamics and gas–solid two-phase flow theory. Fluent 19.2 software is used to analyze the effects of air pipe outlet location () and external air curtain (EAC) outlet air velocity () on dust dispersion. The effects on the characteristics of dust dispersion are analyzed separately, and it is concluded that is optimal. At this distance, the average dust concentration at the breathing zone height is low, and there is no significant fluctuation or rebound in the dust concentration during the dispersion process. When , the highest dust separation efficiency of 89.3% occurs at a breathing height of and (). The driver’s position is protected with a dust separation efficiency of 79.2%. As the value increases, the dust separation efficiency increases slowly. The cost of generating airflow should be considered for dust reduction efficiency, and an optimal of is recommended. The findings of this study can provide a theoretical basis for the selection of ventilation parameters for air curtain dust reduction in continuous mining tunnels with rectangular cross section.
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Data Availability Statement
The data sets used and/or analyzed in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by projects such as the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52075355) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi, China (Grant No. 20210302123219).
Author contributions: All authors made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work. Zhiwei Bai and Honghong Yan: Data collection, methodology, and analysis. Hong Zhang: Conceptualization. Chang Su, Longbao Zhang, and Jiajie Wang: Review and editing. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Zhiwei Bai, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors approved the version to be published.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 150 • Issue 5 • May 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 7, 2023
Accepted: Dec 13, 2023
Published online: Mar 11, 2024
Published in print: May 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Aug 11, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Analysis (by type)
- Coal mining
- Computational fluid dynamics technique
- Dust
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Fluid dynamics
- Fluid mechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Hydrologic engineering
- Mathematics
- Mines and mining
- Models (by type)
- Numerical analysis
- Numerical models
- Parameters (statistics)
- Pollutants
- Statistics
- Tunnels
- Water and water resources
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