MINE VENTILATION
• Deliver fresh air to all active work areas;
• Remove contaminated air, including blasting fumes and diesel emissions; and
• Regulate temperature and humidity to ensure safe working conditions for both personnel and equipment.
Especially in deep or mechanised mines, inadequate ventilation not only increases operational risk but can lead to costly shutdowns or regulatory violations.
Modern mine ventilation systems face growing technical and economic pressures. Harsh and dynamic underground environments make it difficult to maintain consistent airflow. Real-time visibility into gas levels and fan performance is often limited, and maintaining system components in remote areas can be resource-intensive. Compounding this are high energy demands, with ventilation often accounting for a significant share of total power consumption.
Balancing safety, operational continuity and energy efficiency has become one of the key challenges for mine operators and engineers alike.
“ Traditional ventilation strategies rely on fixed schedules and manual fan control,” Becker Mining says.“ While these remain in use, they are increasingly being supplemented – or replaced – by digital systems capable of responding to real-time data. Automated platforms allow airflow to be adjusted according to production schedules, shift changes and actual environmental conditions underground.”
Such systems support more efficient air distribution, reduce energy usage during idle times and improve response times when hazardous conditions emerge.
One such system is smartflow, a ventilation management solution developed by Becker Mining Systems. Purpose-built for the mining environment, smartflow integrates fan monitoring, gas detection and airflow data into a centralised 3D interface, the company says. Operators can remotely control fan operation, modify speed settings and visualise ventilation conditions across the entire mine.
The system includes customisable alarms that trigger alerts when predefined thresholds for airflow, gas levels, or motor load are exceeded. This enables preventive action before critical issues arise. Additionally, smartflow tracks energy consumption on a per-fan basis and automatically generates usage reports, supporting both energy efficiency and billing processes. Historical data is stored for later analysis, aiding long-term maintenance planning and operational optimisation.
“ smartflow is compatible with a broad range of sensor technologies, making it suitable for integration in both new and
28 smartflow integrates fan monitoring, gas detection and airflow data into a centralised 3D interface, Becker Mining Systems says
existing infrastructures,” Becker Mining says.“ Ventilation routines can be configured based on time of day or operational shifts, ensuring airflow aligns with production activity rather than running at full capacity around the clock.”
As next-generation ventilation systems evolve, artificial intelligence will play an increasing role in monitoring environmental conditions, predicting airflow needs and making instant adjustments in response to operational changes, according to the company. Particularly in emergency scenarios, AI-driven automation has the potential to accelerate response times, reduce human intervention and ensure critical areas receive the ventilation they need in seconds – not minutes. smartflow is already deployed in active mining operations and continues to develop in this direction. Future enhancements include deeper integration with predictive analytics, third-party systems and AI-based decision models to help mines to operate more safely and efficiently in real time.
The company concluded:“ By combining traditional engineering with intelligent control, platforms like smartflow help ensure that clean air reaches where it’ s needed – efficiently, safely and on demand.”
Ventsim CONTROL, GeoMoby RTLCS integration
Howden is another proponent of VoD, with the company only strengthening this viewpoint under the guise of Chart Industries, which now owns Howden.
For over a century, Howden has supplied underground ventilation fans to every major global mining company, it says, with its fully integrated ventilation air quality control approach now able to dramatically reduce energy usage by 50 %.
Chart Industries says it is a leading global solutions provider to clean energy and industrial gas markets across the Nexus of Clean™ – clean power, clean water, clean food and clean industrials.
The legacy Howden business supplies a variety of fans – main, booster and auxiliary fans – that provide versatility, economic advantages for efficiency and maintenance, low noise and outstanding aerodynamic performance, it says. Howden combines this with mine cooling and mine heating systems to ensure the optimal solution for each mine site.
Underpinning this is the Ventsim ® platform.
Ventsim DESIGN enables the 3D design, modelling and simulation of underground mine and tunnel ventilation systems with controls for safe and efficient operations. It originated as mining management software in 1993 and, today, ensures operations within mines and tunnels are safe and efficient through a suite of solutions.
Ventsim CONTROL is designed to reduce energy consumption, associated costs and improve energy efficiency in underground mining ventilation systems, supporting customers’ net-zero goals. The software suite uses advanced algorithms to analyse real-time data and adjust ventilation equipment to maximise energy savings while maintaining safe working conditions.
Chart recently said it was continuing to enhance Ventsim capabilities and leverage advancement in technologies like AI. It said its energy management and control tool kit were also evolving, while a carbon calculator was also in the works. This leveraged the energy dashboards it has in place to visualise energy consumption, energy savings and, more recently, carbon emissions.
Australia-based GeoMoby’ s Real-Time Location and Communication System( RTLCS) has been successfully integrated with Ventsim CONTROL, with successful testing of the ventilation integration completed earlier this year.
Chris Baudia, CEO and founder of GeoMoby, said:“ It costs underground mine operators many millions of dollars each year to adequately power and operate ventilation systems and, together, our highly accurate technology is able to cut those costs substantially. Working with Ventsim, GeoMoby could shave millions from operational costs for individual underground mines.
“ Our technology has now been fully integrated with one of the world’ s best VoD systems and, for mines already using Ventsim, their operational costs are about to get a whole lot cheaper.”
GeoMoby says it is disrupting the technology and communications industry that services the global mining industry.
International Mining | JUNE 2025