VENTILATION
systems – in addition to improve the operating
environment for miners – it will not solve all
issues.
“The mine will still need to deal with the
efficient removal of blast & strata gases and heat
since miners still need to go underground to
operate and service the fixed equipment and
operating fleet of production equipment,”
Gribbons said.
The strata gas liberated with the removal of
rock can be benign, toxic or, at times, deplete the
available oxygen below acceptable levels,
according to Gribbons. At greater depths, the air
is denser and continues to pick up heat from
exposed rock, he added.
Kim Trapani, Ventilation Engineer, and Pedram
Rostami, Project Manager, Mining, at Stantec,
agreed with Gribbons’ assessment.
“In mines where electric vehicles are in
operation, there is not a legislation airflow per
brake horsepower but rather a good air quality
needs to be maintained (this needs to consider
parameters such as temperature, silica dust,
oxygen content, carbon dioxide content, etc). The
main issues with deep mines will inevitably still
be addressing the heat, mainly from strata, and
the cooling/refrigeration challenges,” she told
IM.
Howden’s Sales Director – Mining, Peter
Terkovics, said there are still some unknowns
when it comes to how battery-electric vehicles
will impact underground ventilation
requirements.
“How the transition from diesel to battery-
electric vehicles affects mine ventilation design is
yet to be seen because battery-electric vehicles
are still an early-adopter technology,” he told IM.
“With that said, newer vehicles with lower air
requirements may reduce the volumetric
requirements for some phases of
mine operations but heat control
and blast clearing may become
the new drivers for underground
ventilation and overall capacity
requirements may not change too
much.”
Mines will still have to deal
with the installation of
underground booster fans and
methods to chill the ventilation air
so miners can continue to work in
these environments, according to
Gribbons. Both of these are
“massive energy consumers”, he
said.
Against this backdrop, the
ability to regulate or reduce
ventilation could have a marked
impact on overall operating costs.
This has led to the advent of sophisticated
monitoring systems that connect to other
14 International Mining | JULY 2019
sensors and equipment to ensure optimal and
efficient distribution of air to the active areas of a
mine.
Maestro specialises in providing such
solutions, with its Vigilante AQS™, Plexus
PowerNet™ and Zephyr AQS™ systems
deployed in over 125 mines globally.
While ventilation on demand (VoD) may be the
ultimate solution for modern underground mines
that can afford it, Gribbons said air quality
monitoring, alone, can improve productivity by
allowing miners to return to the face quicker and
safer after a blast.
“For example, Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine reported
a productivity improvement of 60 minutes per
day by using the Vigilante AQS for monitoring
blast gases,” he said. “These simple
improvements can result in a return on
investment of days to weeks since the solution is
relatively inexpensive and simple to install.”
Vigilante AQS is a third-generation
underground mine air quality monitoring station
designed with an improved communication
platform. The modular design provides flexible
integration with any SCADA, PLC, DCS, PLS or
HMI system, according to Maestro. Users can
plug the station into a network switch, configure
the settings via the built-in web pages and start
measuring, the company says.
Once these monitoring solutions are installed,
mines can bolt on additional ventilation controls
requiring greater capital expense and planning –
including turning on and off auxiliary fans from
surface – to achieve greater energy savings.
Demand
The next step is VoD.
“VoD systems can be operated to further
reduce the ventilation requirement as long as the
air quality where personnel are working
underground is not compromised,” Stantec’s
Trapani and Rostami said.
The decision to invest in such a VoD system
often boils down to the return on investment it
can offer, according to Trapani and Rostami.
“[It] is typically driven by the size and duration
of the overall mining operation, with longer and
bigger operating mines justifying the investment
of these more expensive technologies and better
systems,” Trapani and Rostami said.
Such mines may have noted the recent tie-up
between Mobilaris and Epiroc, which has led to
the integration of the Mobilaris Mining
Intelligence (MMI) and Epiroc Serpent Ventilation
platforms.
MMI is an information management platform
that gathers data about where people,
equipment and vehicles are at any given time,
while Serpent offers a complete ventilation
system for successful tunnelling and mining
operations, including system design, fan station,
ducting and installation.
Earlier this year, the two companies announced
the deal, which will see ventilation requirements
dictated by the presence of machines or
equipment, the two companies told IM.
“As Mobilaris MMI has the capability of
creating geo fences and knows the position of
equipment, a rule-based demand on the
ventilation can be created when the machines
enter the geo-fenced area,” they said.
This provides a VoD solution that, not only
considers geo fencing, but also data from air
quality sensors.
Combining the two methods ensures “a
healthy work force environment, as well as
keeping energy consumption under control”, the
companies said.
The integration of the Mobilaris Mining Intelligence and Epiroc Serpent Ventilation platforms will see
ventilation requirements dictated by the presence of machines or equipment, the companies say