Ventilation and climate simulation with the Multiflux code

Abstract

Multiflux, a new thermal, hydrologic, and airflow model and software was being employed to solve the flow of heat, moisture, and air in and around an underground opening. The airway domain was solved with an integrated-parameter Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) module, which is an embedded part of the Multiflux code. The CFD model includes convection, conduction, and radiation for heat, as well as convection and diffusion for moisture transport in an air-filled opening. The surrounding rockmass model may be from any analytical solution, or from a complex thermal-hydrologic numerical model such as NUFT or TOUGH2. The rockmass model is interfaced to Multiflux using a novel technique called Numerical Transport Code Functionalization (NTCF). The purpose was to briefly describe the Multiflux model and show four example applications. The first example reports the results of Multiflux simulations for a mine drift, comparing calculations with CLIMSIM, a well known mine climate software, and with measured data. The second and third examples involve development ends in two coal mines. Another development-end ventilation model in Multiflux is also shown as the 4th example compared with field measurements from the Lucky Friday Mine in Idaho, USA for comparison.The results of the study show very good agreement between the Multiflux model and the available measured field results.

CFD study to optimize the auxiliary ventilation system in an underground mine

“…Computational fluid dynamics software (CFD) has been used in the last few years to determine, with high accuracy, the behavior of the underground environmental conditions, such as airflow [6], temperature [7,8] and pollutants [9,10], with the aim of optimizing and improving the working conditions in working faces [11][12][13] and reducing mine expenditures [14].…”