Understanding Mine Fires by Determining the Characteristics of Deep-Seated Fires

Details

• Personal Author:
  Teacoach, Kara A. ; Trevits, Michael A. ; Urosek JE ; Valoski MP ; Yuan L
• Description:
  A mine fire represents one of the most dangerous and challenging safety issues facing underground mine operators. Given the right circumstances, a mine fire can occur at any location in the active or abandoned mine workings, can quickly grow beyond control, and threaten the welfare and livelihood of the entire underground workforce. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), in partnership with the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), has been conducting an in-depth program of research addressing mine fire prevention, early and reliable fire detection, and mine fire suppression technologies. One portion of this program is focused on understanding the characteristics of mine fire combustion products and flame spread through large scale deep-seated (firmly established) fire tests and use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. In this study, two deep-seated fire tests were conducted; one fire consisted of coal material and the other utilized the two most abundant fuel sources found in a coal mine: coal and wooden cribbing blocks. The fires were burned to completion while the combustion products were collected and analyzed. In addition, an array of thermocouples was placed within the body of the material to measure flame spread rate. The coal fire test information was then used to develop a CFD model of the fire. This paper describes the fire tests, provides insight into characteristics of flame spread, and presents the CFD modeling work results. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Movements Emergencies Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Coal-mining Combustion-products Fire-prevention Mine-fires Mining-industry Models Underground-mining
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Publisher:
  Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc.
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Colorado ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 8 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PRL - Pittsburgh Research Laboratory
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-9
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035060
• Citation:
  2009 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit, February 22-25, Denver, Colorado, Preprint 09-150. Littleton, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc., 2009 Feb; :1-9
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• NORA Priority Area:
  Mining
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  2009 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit, February 22-25, Denver, Colorado, Preprint 09-150
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7d1b41726604997079e9f9ff034fe345571b9eb2c031b66908d115fbf5c59ee0d432c564856c0dc9630288da4aa3091ea9ec9217124125017412380a4317ac74
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/227069/cdc_227069_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.31 MB ]