Determination of the fire hazards of mine materials using a radiant panel

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop a laboratory-scale method to rank the ignition and fire hazards of commonly used underground mine materials and to eliminate the need for the expensive large-scale tests that are currently being used. A radiant-panel apparatus was used to determine the materials’ relevant thermal characteristics: time to ignition, critical heat flux for ignition, heat of gasification, and mass-loss rate. Three thermal parameters, TRP, TP1 and TP4, were derived from the data, then developed and subsequently used to rank the combined ignition and fire hazards of the combustible materials from low hazard to high hazard. The results compared favorably with the thermal and ignition hazards of similar materials reported in the literature and support this approach as a simpler one for quantifying these combustible hazards.

Some relevant parameters for assessing fire hazards of combustible mine materials using laboratory scale experiments

“…The experimental configurations and methodologies used for the radiant panel experiments and the smoke chamber experiments, along with detailed results, are presented by Harteis et al and Litton et al, respectively [6,9]. These experiments and the parameters derived from the radiant panel and smoke chamber experiments will be discussed and summarized in the following sections and then used to assess the overall fire hazard.…”

“…More details of this research can be found in the paper by Harteis et al [9]. These parameters are listed in Table 1 for the materials tested in this portion of the research.…”

“…Litton et al studied the ignition and flame spread properties of a variety of noise abatement materials in both medium- and large-scale experiments and developed the concept of a heat parameter to assess the relative risk of flame spread [6]. Pa-ciorek et al [7] catalogued the yields of over 500 toxic gas compounds during the thermal decomposition of numerous combustible mine materials [8,9]. This previous research spans the period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, and while much of this work remains relevant, very little research has been conducted more recently to measure and quantify the hazards from the many new combustibles used in today’s underground mines.…”