See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/320161580

Managing and Controlling the Thermal Environment in Underground Metal

Mines

Thesis · September 2017

CITATIONS READS

0 475

1 author:

Pedram Roghanchi
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
25 PUBLICATIONS   29 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Estimation of intact rock strength using direct and indirect compression testing methods View project

Development of Heat management policy for underground metal mines View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Pedram Roghanchi on 01 October 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 University of Nevada, Reno

Managing and Controlling the Thermal Environment in

Underground Metal Mines

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Geo-Engineering

By
Pedram Roghanchi

Karoly (Charles) Kocsis/Dissertation Advisor

August 2017
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

We recommend that the dissertation

prepared under our supervision by

PEDRAM ROGHANCHI

Entitled

Managing and Controlling the Thermal Environment in Underground Metal Mines

be accepted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Dr. Karoly (Charles) Kocsis, Advisor

Dr. Danny Taylor, Committee Member

Dr. Javad Sattarvand, Committee Member

Dr. Behrooz Abbasi, Committee Member

Dr. Ronald Breitmeyer, Committee Member

Dr. Hanif Livani, Graduate School Representative

David W. Zeh, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School

August, 2017
 i

Abstract
The main aim of this research work was to discuss the methods of identifying and control

heat in underground mine environments. The research contains three main sections as

follow:

1. Selecting an appropriate heat stress index for underground mining application

Methods: The aim of this research study was to discuss the challenges in identifying and

selecting an appropriate heat stress index for thermal planning and management purposes

in underground mines. A method was proposed coupled to a defined strategy for selecting

and recommending heat stress indices to be used in underground metal mines in the US

and worldwide based on a thermal comfort model.

Results: The performance of current heat stress indices used in underground mines varies

based on the climatic conditions and the level of activities. Therefore, by carefully selecting

or establishing an appropriate heat stress index is of paramount importance to ensure the

safety, health and increasing productivity of the underground workers.

Conclusions: This method presents an important tool to assess and select the most

appropriate index for certain climatic conditions in order to protect the underground

workers from heat related illnesses. Although complex, the method presents results that are

easy to interpret and understand than any of the currently available evaluation methods.

2. Best practices in use of continuous climatic monitoring systems for assessment of

underground mine climatic condition:

Methods: Major heat sources in an underground metal mine in Nevada was quantified using

over one year of climatic data collection in both primary and auxiliary ventilation systems.
 ii

Furthermore, auxiliary ventilation systems were examined in a development heading and

a production area at our partner mine. Climatic models were developed and validated to

simulate the climatic conditions based on intake airflow conditions and the heat load along

the ducting system. Considerations were also given to the fact that arsenic concentrations

may be present at the face. Different scenarios were studied to design and optimize the

auxiliary ventilation systems in order to minimize the heat generated by multiple auxiliary

fans and minimize arsenic concentration in the production workings.

Results: The results show that the heat generated by different major heat sources can

change throughout the mine as a function of surface temperature. Furthermore, current

auxiliary ventilation design cannot maintain the comfort limits of the underground workers.

In some cases, some type of cooling system must be utilized to retain the thermal comfort

in production workings.

Conclusions: In many instances, by simply adjusting or upgrading the auxiliary ventilation

system in a problem area of a mine will effectively dilute the pollutants that are generated

during production operations and provide adequate climatic conditions to the mine

workers. This can be achieved through various methods such as: (1) extending the auxiliary

duct towards the face, (2) installing an additional auxiliary fan to overcome the added

pressure losses in the system, (3) changing the size of the fan, (4) switching from an

“exhausting” arrangement to a “forcing” arrangement, and (5) installing an “overlap”

auxiliary ventilation system.

3. Quantifying the thermal damping effect in underground vertical openings using artificial

neural network:
 iii

Method: A nonlinear autoregressive time series with external input (NARX) algorithm was

used as a novel method to predict the dry-bulb temperature (Td) at the bottom of the shaft

as a function of surface air temperature. Furthermore, an attempt was made to quantify

typical “damping coefficient” for both production and ventilation shafts through simple

linear regression models.

Results: The performance of the model was examined using climatic data collected at two

underground mines during summer and winter. Analyses demonstrated that the artificial

neural network (ANN) model could accurately predict the temperature at the bottom of a

shaft. Comparisons between the collected climatic data and the regression-based

predictions show that a simple linear regression model provides an acceptable prediction

of the Td at the bottom of intake shafts. The same approach can be used to predict the

thermal damping effect on the wet-bulb temperature (Tw) at the bottom of production and

ventilation shafts.

Conclusions: A comparison between collected data and the climatic modeling

demonstrates that the ventilation or climatic modeling software packages do not have the

ability take into account the “thermal damping effect (TDE)” (also known as thermal

flywheel effect) when modeling the thermal environment in deep and hot underground

mines. The major difficulty in incorporating TDE comes from a large number of variables

interacting with each other plus the time-dependent heat and mass transport processes that

control the flow of strata heat into/from the mine airways.

 iv

Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, who gave me the greatest support throughout my

life and education.

 v

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to those who have helped me to complete

my degree. I would like to thank Dr. Karoly (Charles) Kocsis, my Ph.D. advisor for offering

research work and his invaluable guidance, encouragement, valuable suggestions and

support through these years.

I would like to thank the committee members, Dr. Karoly (Charles) Kocsis, Dr. Danny

Taylor, Dr. javad Sattarvand, Dr. Behrooz Abbasi, Dr. Ronald Breitmeyer, Dr. Robert

Watters, and Dr. Hanif Livani for their support in completing this work.

Last but not the least, my deepest thanks are expressed to my family and friends for their

endless encouragement.
 vi

Table of content

Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i

Table of content ................................................................................................................. vi

List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi

List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1

1.1. Background .............................................................................................................. 1

1.2. Significance of Heat Problems in Underground Mines ........................................... 2

1.3. Objectives ................................................................................................................. 4

1.4. Dissertation structure................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 2 - Controlling Heat Induced Health and Safety Problems in Underground Mines

............................................................................................................................................. 7

2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7

2.3. Heat Sources in Underground Mines ....................................................................... 7

2.3.1. Strata heat .......................................................................................................... 8

2.3.2. Auto-compression .............................................................................................. 9

2.3.3. Mining equipment.............................................................................................. 9

2.4. The Effect of Heat Exposure on the Underground Worker’s State of Health,

Safety, and Productivity ................................................................................................ 10

2.5. Assessing the thermal comfort in deep underground mines .................................. 12

 vii

2.6. Method of Controlling Heat ................................................................................... 21

2.6.1. Acclimatization ................................................................................................ 22

2.6.2. Identifying and applying a heat stress index ................................................... 22

2.6.3. Re-designing the ventilation system ................................................................ 23

2.6.4. Cooling systems and strategies ........................................................................ 24

2.7. Discussions ............................................................................................................. 25

Chapter 3 Selecting an Appropriate Heat Stress Index to Protect the Workers in Hot and

Humid Underground Mines .............................................................................................. 29

3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 29

3.2. Thermal Comfort .................................................................................................... 31

3.2.1. Thermal Comfort Zone: ................................................................................... 32

3.3. Heat Stress Indices ................................................................................................. 34

3.4. Comparison between the Heat Stress Indices based on Pierce Two-Node Model. 38

3.5. Results .................................................................................................................... 40

3.6. Recommended Selection Criteria ........................................................................... 44

(a) Planning and Design Phase .................................................................................. 45

(b) Operational Phase ................................................................................................ 45

3.7. Discussion .............................................................................................................. 46

Chapter 4 Evaluation of the Atmospheric and Underground Environmental Conditions by

Means of Continuous Climatic Monitoring Systems – Lessons Learned ......................... 48

 viii

4.1. Measurement of heat stress in underground mines ................................................ 48

4.2. Measurement of Important Environmental Parameters in Underground Mines .... 50

4.2.1. Air Temperature .............................................................................................. 50

4.1.2. Relative humidity ............................................................................................ 51

4.1.3. Air velocity ...................................................................................................... 52

4.1.5. Barometric pressure ......................................................................................... 53

4.1.6. Metabolic rate .................................................................................................. 53

4.2. Continuous Monitoring Systems for Assessment of Climatic Conditions in

Underground Mines....................................................................................................... 54

4.2.1. Advantages of Using Continuous Data Logger Type Monitoring Systems .... 56

4.2.2. Applications of Continuous Climatic Monitoring Systems ............................. 57

4.2.3. Challenges in Using Logging Type Monitoring Systems ............................... 62

4.3. Climatic Monitoring Plan using Continuous Climatic Monitoring System ........... 63

4.4. Calculation of Major Heat Sources in Underground Mines – A Case Study......... 64

4.5. Discussion .............................................................................................................. 71

Chapter 5 - Improving the climatic conditions in development and production workings

of hot underground mines by re-designing the auxiliary ventilation system - Case study #

1......................................................................................................................................... 75

5.1. Skin temperature as an index for evaluation of mine climatic condition ............... 75

5.1.1. Skin temperature as a heat stress index ........................................................... 76

 ix

5.1.2. Mean skin temperature calculation .................................................................. 77

5.2. Sensitivity Analysis of the Effect of Airflow Velocity on Thermal Comfort in

Underground Mines....................................................................................................... 78

5.3. Climatic data collection layout ............................................................................... 80

5.3.1 Climatic model development ............................................................................ 81

5.3.2. Case study 1 - Auxiliary ventilation system with no equipment activity ........ 84

5.3.3. Case study 2 - Auxiliary ventilation system with an active drilling equipment

................................................................................................................................... 86

5.4. Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 90

Chapter 6 - Improving the climatic conditions in development and production workings

of hot underground mines by re-designing the auxiliary ventilation system - Case study #

2......................................................................................................................................... 92

6.1. Auxiliary Ventilation Systems in Underground Metal Mines ............................... 92

6.2. Assessment of the climatic conditions along the production headings .................. 93

6.3. Modeling Results.................................................................................................... 97

6.4. Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 100

Chapter 7 Quantifying the Thermal Damping Effect in Underground Vertical Shafts

using the Nonlinear Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) Algorithm ............... 102

7.1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 102

7.2. The Thermal Damping Effect (TDE) ................................................................... 104

7.2. Quantifying the Thermal Damping Effect using NARX ..................................... 109
 x

7.2.1. Climatic Data Collection at Underground Mines .......................................... 109

7.2.2. The Nonlinear Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) Algorithm ...... 111

7.3. The Performance of the NARX Model when Predicting the Thermal Damping

Effect in Vertical Shafts .............................................................................................. 115

7.4. Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 121

Chapter 8 Conclusions .................................................................................................... 122

8.1. Objectives ............................................................................................................. 122

8.2. Research Results .................................................................................................. 123

8.3. Research recommendations .................................................................................. 125

8.4. Future Research Works ........................................................................................ 128

References ....................................................................................................................... 130

 xi

List of Tables
Table 1.1. Five thermal effect zones associated with thermal comfort and sensation

(Fanger, 1970) .................................................................................................................... 3

Table 2.1. Heat-related illnesses in underground mines (Brake & Bates, 2002; Donoghue

2004; Jacklitsch et al., 2016) ............................................................................................ 13

Table 2.2. Current cooling strategies and application to the mining industry (Ramsden et

al., 2007; Mackay et al., 2010; Kamyar et al., 2016; Al Sayed, 2016). ........................... 25

Table 3.1. A literature review on heat stress indices comparison methods ...................... 35

Table 3.2. Heat index algorithms that have been used in this study. ................................ 41

Table 3.3. Recommended heat stress indices for comfort assessment based on various

metabolic rates .................................................................................................................. 42

Table 4.1. Heat sources in underground mines ................................................................. 49

Table 4.2. Calculation of temperature raise caused by autocompression ......................... 65

Table 4.3. Temperature changes for each equipment activity and the average changes

during a 24 hours period ................................................................................................... 67

Table 4.4. Contribution of different major heat sources to the total heat load of the mine

........................................................................................................................................... 71

Table 4.5. Summary of the monitoring program at the mine............................................ 74

Table 5.1. Measured data at the development................................................................... 82

Table 5.2. Comparison between measured data and climatic model results .................... 83

Table 5.3. Comparison between the skin temperature limit and maximum skin

temperatures ...................................................................................................................... 85
 xii

Table 5.4. Comparison between allowed skin temperature limits and maximum skin

temperatures for drilling operations .................................................................................. 88

Table 5.5. Comparison between allowed skin temperature limits and maximum skin

temperatures during mucking ........................................................................................... 90

Table 6.1. Climatic data at the production area when there is no equipment activity

(median) ............................................................................................................................ 95

Table 6.2. Simulation results of climatic parameters from the calibrated Ventsim model96

Table 6.3. Results of different simulation scenarios using Ventsim Model ..................... 99

Table 6.4. Results of different simulation scenarios using Ventsim Model ................... 100

Table 7.1. Critical parameters that influence temperature damping in underground

vertical openings ............................................................................................................. 109

Table 7.2. The geometrical elements of the production and ventilation shafts .............. 111

Table 7.3. Climatic monitoring plan at two underground precious metal mines in Nevada

......................................................................................................................................... 111

Table 7.4. The performance of NARX model for the production and ventilation shafts 117

Table 7.5. Simple linear regression equations to predict the dry-bulb temperature at the

bottom of intake shafts. ................................................................................................... 119

Table 7.6. Comparison of different time series prediction models performance for the

shaft #1. ........................................................................................................................... 120

 xiii

List of Figures
Figure 2.1. Illustration of the effects of heat stress over time........................................... 12

Figure 2.2 (a, b, c). Maximum allowable levels of relative humidity (RH) as a function of

temperature (t) and maximum sweat rate (SWmax) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M = 250

W/m2; and (c) M = 300 W/m2 ........................................................................................... 17

Figure 2.3 (a, b, c). Maximum exposure limits (e.g. work duration) as a function of

temperature (t), and relative humidity (RH) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M = 250 W/m2;

and (c) M = 300 W/m2 ...................................................................................................... 18

Figure 2.4 (a, b, c). Maximum allowable levels of relative humidity (RH), as a function of

temperature (t) and maximum skin wetness (wmax = 1) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M =

250 W/m2; and (c) M = 300 W/m2 .................................................................................... 20

Figure 3.1. Cumulative number of heat stress indices from 1905 to 2012 ....................... 30

Figure 3.2. Convergence between selected heat stress indices (yellow) and comfort zone

(blue), (M=200 W/m2, V=1.5 m/s, Wrse = 0.7, Clothing: coverall). ................................. 43

Figure 3.3. Convergence between selected heat stress indices (yellow) and comfort zone

(blue), (M=250 W/m2, V=1.5 m/s, Wrse = 0.7, Clothing: coverall). ................................. 44

Figure 4.1. The monitoring units can be installed at different locations without interfering

with development and production operations ................................................................... 57

Figure 4.2. An example of dry-bulb temperature change during mucking and hauling

operations .......................................................................................................................... 58

Figure 4.3. Typical layout of Data logger locations in a development heading ............... 58
 xiv

Figure 4.4. Data loggers installed at different locations in auxiliary ventilation system

with minimal damage to the ventilation ducts .................................................................. 59

Figure 4.5. Sharp temperature fluctuation caused by unknown activities in the ramp

before the auxiliary fan ..................................................................................................... 60

Figure 4.6. Thermal damping effect in an intake shaft ..................................................... 61

Figure 4.7. Failure of the monitoring unit when relative humidity (RH) readings exceed

90% ................................................................................................................................... 63

Figure 4.8. Equipment activity data based on the dispatch data at a development heading

........................................................................................................................................... 66

Figure 4.9. An example of equipment activity at the development and the average

temperature change at the face and the return .................................................................. 67

Figure 4.10. Dry-bulb temperature increase with equipment activity at the development 68

Figure 4.11. Dry-bulb temperature increase with equipment activity at the development 68

Figure 4.12. Quantifying major heat sources in our partner mine, td (surface) = 16.32 ˚C ... 70

Figure 4.13. Quantifying major heat sources in our partner mine, td (surface) = 28.5 ˚C ..... 70

Figure 4.14. Comparison of heat load profile in different regions; (a) Canada (Kocsis &

Hardcastle, 2010); (b) Australia (Brake, 2002), and USA ............................................... 73

Figure 5.1. An example of recorded relative humidity at the face. Relative humidity stays

at 100% for approximately 9 hrs. ...................................................................................... 83

Figure 5.2. The effect of air velocity on the wet-bulb temperature for forcing auxiliary

systems .............................................................................................................................. 86

Figure 5.3. The effect of air velocity on the wet-bulb temperature for exhausting auxiliary

systems .............................................................................................................................. 86
 xv

Figure 5.4. Wet bulb temperature changes based on different scenarios when the drill is

active ................................................................................................................................. 88

Figure 5.5. Example of dry-bulb temperature variation during mucking and haulage

activities ............................................................................................................................ 89

Figure 5.6. Wet-bulb temperature changes based on different scenarios for mucking and

hauling............................................................................................................................... 90

Figure 6.1. An example of measured relative humidity values at the face. Relative

humidity stays at 100% for approximately 9 hours .......................................................... 96

Figure 6.2. . Heat load profile in the production area when there is no activity (total heat

load of 82.3 kW) ............................................................................................................... 96

Figure 7.1. Heat exchanges in a vertical opening during day and night as a function of

ambient temperature and virgin rock temperature. ......................................................... 106

Figure 7.2. Dry-bulb damping in an intake shaft during a 24 hours period. ................... 106

Figure 7.3. Comparison between measured air temperatures (e.g. DATA) at the bottom of

an intake shaft and predicted air temperatures by ventilation and climatic simulation

programs. ........................................................................................................................ 108

Figure 7.4. The thermal damping effect depends on the travel time and airflow-wall

contact distance - For an airway located at a long distance from the collar of the intake

shaft, daily temperature variations are negligible. .......................................................... 109

Figure 7.5. The climatic data recorded by the monitoring units was downloaded on a

laptop............................................................................................................................... 110

Figure 7.6. Topology of the NARX model (Z-1 is the unit time delay) .......................... 113
 xvi

Figure 7.7. Smoothed out data to eliminate unknown sharp temperature fluctuations

within the database. ......................................................................................................... 116

Figure 7.8. NARX performance in Shaft #1 (R2 = 0.99; MSE = 0.923) ......................... 117

Figure 7.9. Comparison of error estimations based on NARX, nonlinear time series, and

simple linear regression .................................................................................................. 120

 1

Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1. Background

Mining in the USA remains one of the most hazardous industries, despite significant

reductions in fatal injuries over the last century (Coleman & Kerkering, 2007; Saleh et al.,

2011; Jacklitsch et al., 2016). Occupational health hazards within the mining industry

include physical (e.g. traumatic injuries, hearing loss), chemical (e.g. silica, diesel

particular matter), biological, ergonomics, as well as psychological hazards (Donoghue,

2004; Saleh et al., 2011). The effects of some of these hazards can be diagnosed

immediately, while many will have long term effects on the health, safety, and the life

quality of the mine workers (e.g. black-lung, and silicosis) (Donoghue, 2004; NIOSH,

2000).

As the increasingly mechanized underground mines in the US become deeper, the issue of

heat becomes a significant problem. Hot and humid environments can seriously affect the

performance, overall productivity and most importantly the ability of the underground

workforce to perform work in a safe manner. Assessment of the thermal environment is

becoming more important due to significant effects of excessive heat on safety and health

of the underground miners. These effects on individuals can be from thermal discomfort to

heat-related illnesses such as thermal stress, heat cramps, heat rash, and heat stroke (Brake

& Bates, 2002; Sheer et al., 2001). The main sources of heat in underground metal mines

include auto-compression as air descends through vertical openings, strata heat

(geothermic gradient), machinery, mine water influx, explosive detonations, friction

between falling rock, human metabolism, pipelines and oxidation (Brake & Bates, 2002;

Kocsis & Hardcastle, 2010; Carpenter et al., 2015). In deep and hot mines, the removal of
 2

this heat is a top priority for the mine operators as mine workers are at risk for heat-related

illnesses and injuries (Donoghue, 2004). It is imperative that the underground mine

climatic conditions remain safe for human presence, as mine workers actively work in this

environment. The hot and humid environment also has a negative impact on the efficiency

of the underground workforce which may result in production decline (Xiaojie et al., 2011).

1.2. Significance of Heat Problems in Underground Mines

There is well established mechanism which controls the temperature of a human body to

maintain thermal equilibrium when exposed to heat stresses. However, if the heat stress

exceeds a certain level, this mechanism is no longer able to fully remove the metabolic

heat. In situations when the human body is unable to effectively promote heat transfer to

the ambient surroundings, the risk of heat stress related illnesses and injuries can drastically

increase (Donoghue, 2004; Xiang et al., 2014; Roghanchi et al., 2015).

The magnitude of heat which is stored in the human body is given by the metabolic heat

minus the algebraic sum of the heat flows between the human body and its immediate

environment. Considering steady states, the heat storage (S) is often considered as zero in

order to assure comfort for a worker. The thermal interaction of the human body with the

environment can be written, as follows (ISO 7933, 2005):

S = M - (C + R + B + E + K + W) (W/m2) Eq. 1.1

The human body is basically a biological “heat engine” of low mechanical efficiency.

Within the human body, through chemical reactions, nutrients combine with oxygen to

produce: (1) metabolic heat, and (2) mechanical work. The mechanical work output is

seldom more than 20% of the total metabolic energy even for vigorous activities, and it is
 3

taken into account when work is performed against gravity. The metabolic energy, which

is proportional to the oxygen consumption can be defined as:

Metabolic energy = Metabolic heat + Work performed against gravity

If the human body is to remain in thermal equilibrium, then the metabolic heat (M) must

be transferred to the surrounding environment at the same rate. Heat transfer from the

human body to the ambient surroundings can occur through a combination of various

heat transfer processes such as: (1) respiratory heat exchange, (2) convection, (3)

radiation, and Evaporation. At “thermal equilibrium”, the rate of heat storage is basically

zero (Shapiro & Epstein, 1984; King, 2004; Epstein & Moran, 2006). Physical fitness,

hydration state, gender, anthropometric data, age, history of heat illnesses,

acclimatization, drug use, alcohol consumption, hypertension, and body size are some of

the important parameters that affect the individual response to heat exposure (ACGIH,

2014; Jacklitsch et al., 2016). Table 1.1 shows different comfort sensations based on the

total heat stored in the human body.

Table 1.1. Five thermal effect zones associated with thermal comfort and sensation (Fanger, 1970)
Thermal Sensation Zone of Thermal Effect Comfort Sensation Total Heat Storage (S)
Very hot (1) In-compensable heat zone Very uncomfortable 𝑆≫0
Hot (2) Sweat evaporation compensable Uncomfortable 𝑆≈0
zone
Warm Slightly
uncomfortable
Slightly warm
Neutral (3) Vasomotor compensable zone Comfortable 𝑆=0

Slightly cool
Cool (4) Shivering compensable zone Slightly 𝑆≈0
uncomfortable
Cold Uncomfortable
Very Cold (5) In-compensable cold zone Very uncomfortable 𝑆≪0
 4

Physical fitness, hydration state, gender, anthropometric data, age, history of heat illness,

acclimatization, drug use (prescription and narcotic), alcohol consumption, hypertension,

and body size are of the relevant parameters that affect the individual response to heat

exposure (NIOSH, 2000; ACGIH, 2014).

1.3. Objectives

The main goals of this research work were as follow:

1. Assessment of the presence of issues as well as safety and health concerns in deep and
hot mines in the US

Task 1. Literature review of heat issues in underground mines, identifying the

problem areas, and methods of control heat in underground environment

2. Challenges in identifying appropriate heat stress indices to be used in underground

mine

Task 1. Understanding human thermal balance and comfort limit

Task 2. Comparison between heat stress indices based on Pierce Two-node model
Task 3. Development of new selection criteria for mine planning phase and
operation phase
Task 4. Recommend heat stress indices for thermal comfort assessment of
underground workers based on various metabolic rate

3. Optimizing auxiliary ventilation system to improve the climatic condition in

development and production workings

Task 1. Best practices for design and use of climatic monitoring systems in hot US
mines

Task 2. Identifying the optimum airflow velocity for thermal comfort

Task 3. Application of mean skin temperature as a heat stress index

 5

Task 4. Case studies in optimizing auxiliary ventilation system to reduce heat load
in developments and production workings

4. Identifying and quantifying the thermal damping effect in underground vertical

openings

Task 1. Identifying the thermal damping effect based on over a year of data
collection at two underground gold mines in Nevada

Task 2. Quantifying the thermal damping effect using artificial neural network
model

Task 3. Developing the thermal damping coefficients for production and ventilation
shafts

1.4. Dissertation structure

This dissertation is organized in seven chapters as follow:

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Controlling Heat Induced Health and Safety Problems in Underground Mines:

This chapter aimed to discuss major heat-related issues and provide an overview of various

mine ventilation and cooling systems, which can be employed to overcome high levels of

heat and humidity in underground mines. In this chapter, the effects of heat exposure on

the health, safety, and productivity of the mine workers are also highlighted.

Chapter 3. Challenges in Selecting an Appropriate Heat Stress Index to Protect the Workers

in Hot and Humid Underground Mines: This chapter discussed the challenges in

identifying and selecting an appropriate heat stress index for thermal planning and

management purposes in underground mines. A method is proposed coupled to a defined

strategy for selecting and recommending heat stress indices to be used in underground

metal mines in the US and worldwide based on a thermal comfort model.

 6

Chapter 4. Evaluation of the Atmospheric and Underground Environmental Conditions by

Means of Continuous Climatic Monitoring Systems – Lessons Learned: This chapter aimed

to highlight the lessons learned from the climatic monitoring programs, which were

conducted over two years at two underground metal mines in Nevada. The monitoring

program for both primary and auxiliary ventilation systems was discussed. The practices

and challenges in using continuous climatic monitoring systems in deep and hot metal

mines were highlighted.

Chapter 5 & 6. Improving the climatic conditions in development and production workings

of hot underground mines by re-designing the auxiliary ventilation system - Case study #

1 & # 2: In these chapters, auxiliary ventilation systems in a development and a production

area were re-designed to minimize the heat load at these locations. Different scenarios were

studied to find the optimum ventilation system along with a cooling system to maintain the

thermal comfort at the development and production areas.

Chapter 7. Quantifying the Thermal Damping Effect in Underground Vertical Shafts using

the Nonlinear Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) Algorithm: The objective of

this chapter was to quantify the thermal damping effect in vertical underground airways. A

nonlinear autoregressive time series with external input (NARX) algorithm was used as a

novel method to predict the dry-bulb temperature (Td) at the bottom of the shaft as a

function of surface air temperature. The performance of the model was examined using

climatic data collected at two underground mines during summer and winter.

Chapter 8. Conclusions and future works.

 7

Chapter 2 - Controlling Heat Induced Health and Safety

Problems in Underground Mines

2.1. Introduction

Among the mining hazards, exposure to heat and humidity can significantly affect the

safety, health, and the productivity of the mine workers particularly in deep and hot

underground mines (Roghanchi et al., 2015). Short-term acute heat exposures can cause a

rise in the core temperature of the human body, which can result in a heat-related illness or

a combination of heat-related illnesses. Adverse long-term chronic heat exposures can

generate serious occupational heat-related illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases, mental

health problems, and chronic kidney diseases. High core body temperatures coupled with

dehydration can also generate negative behavioral effects such as physical fatigue,

irritability, lethargy, impaired judgment, loss of dexterity, and loss of concentration

(Zhang, 2003; Zhang et al., 2010; Xiang et al., 2014).

2.3. Heat Sources in Underground Mines

The rising demand for minerals has driven the underground mines to extract ore reserves

from increasingly deeper levels, and also steered the mines to increase the level of

mechanization year after year. As a result, the underground mine environment has become

more extreme, as temperature and humidity levels continued to rise due to an increase in

the size and number of diesel engine powered mining equipment and other sources of heat.

The major heat sources in underground mines are: (1) strata heat (geothermal gradient), (2)

auto-compression, and (3) mining equipment.

 8

2.3.1. Strata heat

The main difficulty in quantifying the heat that is transferred from the strata (or vice versa)

to the mine air is the large number of ventilation, geological and mine design variables,

which are often interacting with each other to control the flow of heat from strata. These

parameters include the length and geometry of the mine openings, the depth below surface,

wetness of the mine openings, roughness of the airways, volume of air, the virgin rock

temperature, inlet air parameters, the thermal properties of the rock formations, etc. When

cool air passes through a horizontal airway, its temperature usually increases. This is

caused by the natural geothermal heat being conducted through the rock formations

towards the airway, then passing through the boundary layers of the mine air close to the

rock surface. The envelope of the rock immediately surrounding the newly driven airway

will rapidly cool at first, and there will accordingly be a relative high rate of initial heat

release into the mine air. This will decline in time and as the rock surface gradually cools

approaching an equilibrium state when its temperature equals that of the air (McPherson,

2009).

Despite the fact that the air temperature along the main airways rises and falls as a function

of the surface climate, the temperature in the main returns can remain relatively constant.

This is because cool air will promote heat flow from the rock formations. As the

temperature of the air approaches the natural temperature of the rock, such heat transfer

will gradually diminish. Furthermore, when the ventilating air leaves a highly mechanized

production area, its temperature can be greater than the local strata temperature. In this

case, heat will be transferred from the ventilating air into the rock formations. The air will
 9

start cooling until an equilibrium state is again formed, when the temperature of the mine

air equals that of the strata.

2.3.2. Auto-compression

When air descends through a vertical opening (e.g. shaft) some of its potential energy is

converted into enthalpy, which produces an increase in pressure, internal energy and as a

result, temperature (Danko, 2013). The rise in air temperature as air descends a vertical

airway is independent of any frictional effects. The heat added from strata to the ventilating

air can be positive or negative, but the increase in temperature due to an elevation

difference is certain for any vertical airway. The effects of auto-compression are also

independent of the amount of air. In deep mines, as a result of auto-compression, the intake

air leaving the bottom of the shaft may already be at temperatures that necessitates some

form of cooling (kocsis and Hardcastle, 2010). Despite the fact that there may be a

significant rise in air temperature along intake airways, the most noticeable increases may

occur in the production workings. This is because, firstly, the newly exposed and warm

surface of the broken ore/rock will transfer its heat to the ventilating air and, secondly, the

diesel engine powered mining equipment that is concentrated in the production area can

generate a considerable amount of heat (Roghanchi et al., 2017).

2.3.3. Mining equipment

Increasing mechanization made the mining equipment to join the strata and auto-

compression as an added major source of heat in underground mines. Production

equipment and service vehicles as well as well as transformers and fans are all devices that

convert an input power, via a useful effect into heat. For any given mining equipment, the

total heat produced is simply the rate at which power is supplied, less any work done
 10

against gravity (Danko, 2013). The internal combustion engines of diesel equipment have

an overall efficiency of only one-third of that achieved by electrical units. Hence, diesels

will produce approximately three times as much heat as electrical equipment for the same

mechanical work output. One-third of this heat is generated by the diesel equipment

radiator and its body, one-third appears as heat in the exhaust gases. The remaining heat is

generated by the frictional processes as the machine performs its tasks (Sunkpal, 2015). A

significant difference between diesel and electrical equipment is that diesels produce part

of their heat output in the form of latent heat. Each liter of diesel fuel is consumed produces

approximately 1.1 liter of water in the exhaust gases (Sunkpal, 2015). This may be

multiplied several times due to the evaporation of water from the cooling systems and

where water is employed in emission control systems.

2.4. The Effect of Heat Exposure on the Underground Worker’s State of

Health, Safety, and Productivity

Performing work in a hot and humid environment can alter the thermoregulation process

of a mine worker, which can induce a heat related illness or a combination of heat related

illnesses. Table 1.2 summarizes the heat related illnesses, causes, symptoms, as well as the

required treatment to re-establish thermal balance. Heat stroke and heat exhaustion are two

of the most frequent illnesses that are caused by work performed in a sub-standard

environment. Heat stroke is a serious illnesses, which carries a high risk of fatality if the

worker is not immediately treated and the climatic conditions are not corrected. Heat

exhaustion, which preludes heat stroke, is caused when the thermoregulation system of a

mine worker is unable to transfer the metabolic heat generated through various activities

to the ambient surroundings at the rate at which is produced. To prevent these conditions,
 11

the wet-bulb temperature of the working area is recommended to be reduced to below 29°C

in order to reduce the risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (Donoghue, 2004).

Brake and Bates (2002) provide a list and highlight the major factors that can influence

heat stress levels among the mine workers in hot and humid environments in order to

decrease the risk of heat exhaustion as well as heat stroke. Among these factors,

cardiovascular fitness is absolutely essential in promoting good circulation by which

oxygen from the lungs is delivered to the vital organs. Acclimatization, hydration, the level

of activity (e.g. metabolic rate), and the type of clothing worn are also important factors to

promote and manage heat exchange between the mine workers and the ambient

surroundings.

The consequences of exposure to heat and humidity has an accumulating growth effect on

the health and safety of mine workers. The longer the workers are exposed to heat, the

more their core body temperature tends to increase away from an acquired comfort level

(Handcock, 1999). In this state, heat storage in the body accumulates over time and the

heat stress level increases. This can make heat a silent and dangerous health hazard, as its

effects are often not exposed until life threatening health conditions develop. The ability of

the human body to adjust to changing climatic conditions is the cause of this imminent

danger. In this case, an immediate effect can be physical fatigue, impaired judgment, and

disinterest in the assigned tasks. In the case of vigorous physical work, the rise of body

temperature is much more rapid and begins at a much lower heat load level, which will

cause the workers to encounter the dangerous effects of heat within shorter exposure times.

Figure 2.1 shows the effects of heat stress as a function of exposure time.
 12

Another noticeable effect of high temperature and humidity conditions is reluctance and/or

inability of a mine worker to perform active muscular work. This often begins as a mere

inertness, supplemented by sleepiness. This effect may initially be resisted and passed off

as a genuine condition of fatigue, which can ultimately lead into heat exhaustion and heat

stroke (Haldane, 1905). Several studies have shown that a worker is much less efficient in

a warm and humid climate, due to the fact that in such conditions the natural tendency of

its nervous system is to become less active and for muscular work to diminish (Britain &

Samuel, 1907).

Figure 2.1. Illustration of the effects of heat stress over time

2.5. Assessing the thermal comfort in deep underground mines

An evaluation of “thermal comfort” must start with the recognition that comfort is basically

a state of mind (Fanger, 1970). The estimation of comfort requires a scientific model to

establish a correlation between one or more climatic factors and determine the resulting

comfort sensation that would be experienced by an individual in a specific environment.

As various individuals has shown unreliable results during different thermoregulation tests,

such an association is rather difficult to be determined experimentally. Consequently, most-

 13

Table 2.1. Heat-related illnesses in underground mines (Brake & Bates, 2002; Donoghue 2004; Jacklitsch et al., 2016)
Heat Illness Cause Symptoms Treatment
An individual develops heat rash when his/her pores The rash may appear as blisters or red Heat rash usually goes away on its own.
Heat rash become obstructed and sweat cannot escape. The lumps. Heat rash may cause itchiness. Lightweight clothing may help to decrease the
cause of heat rash is often friction on the surface of It is usually developed in the parts of itchiness.
the skin. the body that rub together such as
neck, upper chest, and in elbow
creases.
Refers to a fainting episode that occurs when an Dizziness, lightheadedness, The affected individual shall sit or lie down in a
Heat syncope individual in a hot and humid environment doesn’t weakness, loss of consciousness, pale cool place. Elevating the legs above the level of
have adequate blood flow to the brain, causing the or sweaty skin, weak pulse. the heart may help to promote blood flow to the
person to lose consciousness. This can occur when an heart. Rehydration with water or a sport beverage
individual is standing in a hot environment for a long helps to alleviate the symptoms.
period time without any movement
Heat cramps are painful, brief muscle cramps. Heat cramps and symptoms are Heat cramps usually go away on their own.
Heat cramps Muscles may spasm or jerk involuntarily. The painful muscle spasms usually Resting in a cool place and drinking cold water or
mechanism of heat cramps is unknown, but they can involving the legs, chest or the sport drinks helps to control the severity of the
be caused by dehydration or lack of adequate abdomen. symptom.
electrolytes in the diet.
Heat exhaustion is a condition whose symptoms may Heavy sweating, paleness, muscle Activity must stop immediately. Heat exhaustion
Heat include heavy sweating and a rapid pulse, a clear cramps, tiredness, weakness, can be self-treated. Decreasing the body
exhaustion result that the human body is being overheated. dizziness, headache, nausea, temperature is crucial to treat the heat exhaustion.
vomiting, and fainting. Resting in a cool place and drinking cold fluids
may help. Prompt medical attention is necessary
if the symptoms do not go away within an hour.
Heat stroke is the most serious heat related illness, Confusion, altered mental status, Heat stroke is a very serious illness, which carries
Heat stroke which occurs when the core temperature of the human slurred speech, loss of consciousness, a high risk of fatality within the underground
body rises above 40˚C. At this temperature the profuse sweating, and seizures. environment when the worker is not quickly
thermoregulation functions of the human body can be treated and the climatic conditions are not
seriously damaged. It can also generate irreversible immediately corrected.
damage to the brain and other vital internal organs.
 14

thermal models are developed to take into account behavioral responses from a large

number of individuals that are exposed to various climatic conditions.

Thermal comfort models can be categorized into “physiological” and “psychological”

models (Cheng et al., 2011). A physiological thermal model involves the self-regulatory

function of the human body to varied thermal environments. These self-regulatory

processes include vasoconstriction, shivering, vasodilation, sweating, etc. Physiological

thermal models range from the simplest “one-node” models to the complex “three-

dimensional” finite element models. Examples of “one-node” thermal models are: the one-

node model (Givoni & Goldman, 1971), the two-node model (Gagge et al., 1971), the two-

node model with transient response (Jones, 1992; Fiala et al., 1999). A psychological

thermal model can predict both local and whole-body thermal sensations. Examples of

psychological thermal models are: the whole-body thermal state model (Dear et al., 1993),

transient models, non-uniform models, uniform models (Arens et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,

2010), the transient thermal sensation model (Fiala et al., 2010), etc.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has formed an integrated series of

international standards to assess the human response to various thermal environments. For

example, for a hot and humid environment a three-tier approach can be applied, which

involves: (1) a simple thermal index such as WBGT, that can be used for monitoring and

control (Parson, 2006), (2) a rational index such as SWreq, which involves an assessment

of the heat exchange process between a worker and the environment (ISO 7933, 2005), and

(3) a standard for physiological measurement, which can be used to establish a monitoring

system for the workers (Parson, 2006). This method of evaluation and interpretation

calculates the thermal balance of the human body from the parameters of the thermal
 15

environment such as: ta, tr, Pa,va which are estimated according to ISO 7726. The physical

characteristics of the workers exposed to these conditions such as the metabolic rate (M)

is estimated on the basis of ISO 8996 (2004). Furthermore, the thermal characteristics of

the workers clothing are estimated on the basis of ISO 9920 (2009).

In this study, a “thermal model” was developed to assess the effect of the net heat load and

humidity on the health and safety of the mine workers coupled with climatic and

physiological parameters such as airflow, temperature, humidity, work intensity, and

clothing. Simulations performed on the thermal model mirrored the stress conditions which

can be experienced by a mine worker as a function of ambient conditions, clothing, and

various metabolic rates. Many heat stress publications (ISO 7933, 2005; ISO 8996, 2004;

NIOSH, 2010; Jacklitsch et al., 2016) use the fundamental principle which implies that an

increase in work rate should be compensated by a reduction in environmental heat load

(Graveling et al., 1988). The limit setting criteria for this thermal model was also derived

from this principle.

The metabolic rate, the level of humidity, the dry-bulb temperature and the type of clothing

are all key parameters which can confirm thermal equilibrium, or determine the net heat

that will be stored in the human body. Metabolic rates of 200 W/m2, 250 W/m2, and 300

W/m2 were considered for this study, which represent light, moderate, and vigorous levels

of activity. Input parameters can also characterize physical work which involves sustained

hand-and-arm movement, arm-and-trunk work, and intense arm-and-trunk work, ISO 8996

(2004). Throughout the climatic and thermoregulation simulations the airflow velocity, and

type of clothing was kept constant at 1.5 m/s, and a coefficient of heat transfer of 0.6. The

air temperatures used in the thermal model ranged from 20˚C through to 36˚C, since these
 16

are normally observed values in many underground mines. The output results of the model

which are maximum evaporation rate, required evaporation rate and required sweat rate are

interpreted base on the state of acclimatization of the subject. There is an alarm and a

danger criteria for the predicted sweat rate and the duration of exposure. Two stress criteria

of a) maximum skin wetness (wmax), b) max sweat rate (SWmax) and a criteria of strain max

water loss in the form of maximum tolerable exposure time (TLV) form the basis for the

interpretation of the values. When the predicted values are below the maximum values

sufficient sweat can be evaporated to maintain thermal equilibrium. The environmental

conditions been considered for this analysis are severe and will involve excessive water

loss from the body of the subjects. A comprehensive analysis of the development and

implementation of this model is found in (Sunkpal, 2015).

The output results generated from the model runs, which include the maximum evaporation

rate, the required evaporation rate, and the required sweat rate have been determined

according to a non-acclimatized mine worker. A distress signal was also imbedded in the

thermal model based upon a risk criteria, which took into account the predicted sweat rate,

the skin wetness, and the work duration (e.g. duration of exposure) of the mine worker.

Three stress criteria such as: (a) the maximum sweat rate (SWmax), (b) duration of exposure,

and (c) maximum skin wetness (wmax), established the basis for work comfort, data analysis

and interpretation. It was assumed that when the predicted values were below the maximum

permissible stress values, sufficient sweat was evaporated from the skin and/or the clothing

surface of a mine worker in order to maintain thermal equilibrium. The output results

generated by means of climatic and thermoregulation simulations are presented in Figure

1.2 (a, b, c), Figure 1.3 (a, b, c), and Figure 1.4 (a, b, c).
 17

(a) (b)

(c)
Figure 2.2 (a, b, c). Maximum allowable levels of relative humidity (RH) as a function of temperature (t)
and maximum sweat rate (SWmax) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M = 250 W/m2; and (c) M = 300 W/m2

Figure 1.2 (a, b, c) shows the maximum levels of RH, which are permitted in a production

area of an underground operation for temperatures ranging from 20˚C through to 36˚C. The

RH levels are also a function of the limiting sweat rates (SWmax) produced by a mine

worker, which performs manual work at increasing levels that correspond to metabolic

rates of 200 W/m2, 250 W/m2, and 300 W/m2. The maximum sweat rate produced by an

un-acclimatized mine worker (SWmax) varies from 840 (grams/hour) to 1,080 (grams/hour),

and 1,330 (grams/hour) for metabolic rates of 200 W/m2, 250 W/m2, and 300 W/m2,

respectively.

The thermal model considers that fresh air is delivered to the production area at a constant

velocity of 1.5 m/s, and the clothing worn by the mine worker has a coefficient of heat
 18

transfer of 0.6. Figure 2(a) shows that for a low level activity, which corresponds to a

metabolic rate Ml = 200 W/m2, and for ambient temperature t = 30˚C, the maximum

allowable RH in the production area is 90%. Figure 2(b) shows that for the same climatic

conditions but for a medium level of activity, which corresponds to a metabolic rate Mm =

250 W/m2, the RH in the production area should not exceed 80%. Figure 2(c) shows that

for the same climatic conditions, but for a metabolic rate Mv = 300 W/m2, the RH in the

production area should not exceed 68%.

(a) (b)

(c)
Figure 2.3 (a, b, c). Maximum exposure limits (e.g. work duration) as a function of temperature (t), and
relative humidity (RH) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M = 250 W/m2; and (c) M = 300 W/m2

Figure 1.4 (a, b, c) shows the maximum allowable exposure times (e.g. work duration) of

a mine worker in the production area, who performs manual work at levels that correspond

to metabolic rates of 200 W/m2, 250 W/m2, and 300 W/m2. The maximum allowable
 19

exposure times are also a function of the dry-bulb temperature, which varies from 20˚C

through to 36˚C, as well as RH, which varies from 50% through to 100%. The maximum

allowable exposure time was determined by means of simulation techniques performed on

the thermal model, which considers that fresh air is delivered to the production area at a

constant velocity of 1.5 m/s, and the type of clothing of the mine worker has a heat transfer

coefficient of 0.6. Figure 3(a) shows that for a low level of activity, which corresponds to

a metabolic rate of Ml = 200 W/m2, for an ambient temperature t = 30˚C, and for RH =

80%, the maximum allowable exposure time of a mine worker is 5.0 hours. The allowable

exposure time reflects continuous manual work performed at a constant metabolic rate.

Furthermore, for the same ambient conditions, if the metabolic rate of the mine worker

increases to 250 W/m2 and 300 W/m2, the maximum allowable exposure time needs to

decrease to 2.8 hours, and 1 hour, respectively. Based on the above mentioned ambient

conditions and work duration limits, a mine worker will have the ability to maintain thermal

equilibrium. If the temperature and/or the RH in the production area further increases, the

permitted work duration needs to decrease according to the graphs shown in Figure 3 (a.

b, c).

Figure 4 (a, b, c) shows the maximum levels of RH, which are permitted in the production

area for temperatures that vary from 20˚C through to 36˚C. In this case the RH levels are a

function of the maximum skin wetness (wmax) of an un-acclimatized mine worker, which

performs manual work at levels that correspond to metabolic rates of 200 W/m2, 250 W/m2,

and 300 W/m2. The skin wetness (w), which can vary from zero to a maximum value of

0.85 was determined according to research work published by Fanger in 1970. The thermal
 20

model also considers that fresh air is delivered to the production area at a constant velocity

of 1.5 m/s, and the clothing worn by the mine worker has a heat transfer coefficient of 0.6.

Figure 4(a) shows that for manual activity, which corresponds to a metabolic rate Ml = 200

W/m2, and for an ambient temperature t = 30˚C, the maximum allowable RH in the

production area is 87%. Figure 4(b) shows that for the same climatic conditions but for a

higher level of activity which corresponds to a metabolic rate Mm = 250 W/m2, the RH in

the production area should not exceed 74%. Furthermore, Figure 4(c) shows that for the

same climatic conditions, but for a metabolic rate Mv = 300 W/m2, the RH in the production

area should not exceed 63%.

(a) (b)

(c)
Figure 2.4 (a, b, c). Maximum allowable levels of relative humidity (RH), as a function of temperature (t)
and maximum skin wetness (wmax = 1) for: (a) M = 200 W/m2; (b) M = 250 W/m2; and (c) M = 300 W/m2
 21

The above results determined by means of simulation techniques, which are presented in

Figure 1.2 (a, b, c), Figure 1.3 (a, b, c) and Figure 1.4 (a, b, c) show that the climatic

parameters of an underground environment as well as the thermoregulation parameters of

a mine worker took into account the limiting physiological parameters such as the

maximum sweat rate (SWmax), the maximum skin wetness (wmax) and the maximum

exposure time (hours). The simulation results emphasize the fact that an accurate thermal

model has the ability to either quantify the maximum allowable climatic parameters in an

underground work area such as temperature (t) and relative humidity (RH), or for a given

work environment and predetermined metabolic rates (M) to determine the maximum

exposure times (e.g. work duration) for the mine workers. The allowable exposure time

represent the maximum time a worker can continue to perform tasks in order to maintain

thermal equilibrium.

2.6. Method of Controlling Heat

Deciding between different heat mitigation techniques can drastically change the operating

cost of an underground mine. Considering the list of energy demanding activities,

ventilation is identified as one of the top contributors. Ventilation costs make up to 40% of

the total electricity usage, and up to 60% of underground operating costs (Karacan, 2007;

Kurnia et al., 2014). Because every mine is unique, it is essential to monitor the climatic

conditions in the mine to understand where the heat is coming from, in order to identify

and design the most appropriate method of cooling. In the majority of cases the airflow

itself is sufficient to remove the heat that is produced during the mining processes. In deep

metal mines, the heat removal, which is usually the dominant environmental problem, may

necessitate the use of some level of refrigeration.

 22

2.6.1. Acclimatization

Several studies have summarized the parameters which are important to the

thermoregulation process of the human body, such as physical fitness, acclimatization,

hydration state, hypertension, gender, and age. Furthermore, other parameters may include

factors such as previous heat-related illnesses, difficulty to acclimatize or re-acclimatize to

the heat and humid conditions, hypertension, body size, drug use, and alcohol use

(Havenith, 1985; Kenny et al., 2009). A properly designed and applied heat acclimatization

program will increase the ability of the mine personnel to work in hot and humid

environments, while decreasing the risk of heat-related illnesses. For a healthy worker,

acclimatization to a hot and humid environment can be usually attained in 7 to 14 days

(DOD 1980, 2003; NEHC, 2007; ACGIH, 2014).

2.6.2. Identifying and applying a heat stress index

Heat stress indices have several safety and health applications in the mining industry.

Among these applications setting exposure limits or threshold limit values, is probably the

most important application of a heat stress index (Lee, 1985). A heat stress index integrates

personal, physiological, and thermal parameters into a single number for a “quantitative”

assessment of exposing mine workers to heat stress (McPherson, 1962; Graveling, 1988;

Epstein & Moran, 2006). Heat stress indices can be grouped into: (1) rational indices,

which are based on calculations involving the heat balance equation; (2) empirical indices,

based on objective and subjective heat strain assessments; and (3) direct indices, which

involve direct measurements of environmental parameters such as dry-bulb temperature,

wet-bulb temperature, wet-bulb-globe temperature, relative humidity, airflow velocity, etc.

(Graveling, 1988; Brake & Bates, 2002; Epstein & Moran, 2006).
 23

A heat stress index, which is anticipated to be used for a specific work area, should satisfy

the following criteria before being established as a standard for industrial use (Webber et

al., 2003): (a) be applicable to and accurate within the range of conditions for which it will

be used, (b) take cognizance of all relevant parameters of heat stress, (c) be applicable

through simple measurements and calculations, (d) apply valid weighting to all factors

considered, in direct relation to their contribution to total physiological strain, (e) provide

a practical foundation in order to develop regulatory standards.

2.6.3. Re-designing the ventilation system

Designing or re-designing the primary and/or the auxiliary ventilation systems to provide

adequate air volumes to the production workings should be explored before any level of

refrigeration is considered. For example, under certain conditions and based upon the

mining method employed, a localized “exhausting” auxiliary ventilation system can be re-

designed into a “forcing” system. The higher velocity airstream emerging from a forcing

duct can provide cooler air at the face of a dead-end development heading, having also

taken into account the heat generated by the auxiliary fan. Another advantage of a forcing

auxiliary ventilation system is that flexible fabric ducts can be used due to positive pressure

along the ducting system. The main disadvantage of a forcing auxiliary systems is that

pollutants added to the ventilating air at the face will affect the entire length of the drift, as

the return air passes back along it.

The advantages of both forcing and exhausting auxiliary ventilation systems can be

combined when an “overlap” system is used. A push-pull overlap ventilation system can

provide adequate airflow velocities at the face of a production stope, while the

contaminated air is immediately directed into the ducting system. The problem with an
 24

overlap auxiliary system is that it requires a relatively large cross-sectional area where two

ducting systems can be installed. For this study, the use of an overlap ventilation system

wasn’t feasible due to small cross-sectional areas in the production and development

workings. An efficient ventilation system which has the ability to deliver appropriate air

volumes to the production workings can be an effective method to control heat and

humidity in underground mines.

2.6.4. Cooling systems and strategies

The main objective of mine ventilation system is to provide comfort to the mine workers

and machinery by supplying an adequate amount of fresh air to remove the pollutants

generated during development and production operations. However, the ability of

ventilation systems to provide acceptable climatic conditions can decrease as a function of

mining depth, the geothermal gradient and the level of mechanization. In deep and hot

mines, the removal of heat is a top priority for the mine operators, as mine workers can be

exposed to heat-related illnesses and injuries. Despite the fact that many underground

mines in the US may not have a history of severe heat problems mine-wide, there might be

localized areas (e.g. production workings, development headings) where the temperature

and humidity values are continually exceeding the allowable limits. Selecting the most

suitable method of cooling depends on the magnitude of heat which needs to be removed,

the makeup of the combined heat load (e.g. auto-compression, strata, mining equipment,

blasting), the employed extraction method(s), the location of problem areas, and economic

considerations.
 25

Table 2.2. Current cooling strategies and application to the mining industry (Ramsden et al., 2007; Mackay
et al., 2010; Kamyar et al., 2016; Al Sayed, 2016).
Cooling Method Strategy Details
Micro-climate These cooling systems serve the (a) located where the miners work and travel,
cooling systems purpose of cooling the area directly (b) maximum positional efficiency, (c) low
around the worker. Examples of this capital investment, (d) mobile, (e) workers are
include air-conditioned cabs and not always in air conditioned cabs, (f) current
cooling garments. cooling garments are not optimal for use in
underground mines.
Spot cooling These small, mobile units are (a) located in areas away from main airways,
systems placed in problem areas to mitigate (b) low cooling capacity, (c) high positional
heat or to supplement the central efficiency, (d) low capital investment, (e)
cooling system when necessary. mobile, (f) must reject heat into a return
airway.
Surface bulk The intake shaft draws air through a (a) located on the surface, (b) largest cooling
cooling systems spray chamber known as bulk air capacity, (c) lowest positional efficiency, (d)
cooler (BAC) to chill the air. A can dissipate heat directly to the atmosphere,
dedicated fridge shaft may be used (e) limited by the depth of the mine
entirely for ultra-cold air.
Underground Utilize a BAC or cooling-coil (a) located underground in main airways, (b)
bulk coolers to chill the main intake air. large cooling capacity, (c) low positional
cooling systems Secondary underground BACs may efficiency, (d) limited by space underground,
be set up along the main intake. (e) must reject heat into a return airway or
through return waterlines to the surface

2.7. Discussions

In many instances, by simply adjusting or upgrading the auxiliary ventilation system in a

problem area of a mine will effectively dilute the pollutants that are generated during

production operations and provide adequate climatic conditions to the mine workers. This

can be achieved through various methods such as: (1) extending the auxiliary duct towards

the face, (2) installing an additional auxiliary fan to overcome the added pressure losses in

the system, (3) changing the size of the fan, (4) switching from an “exhausting”

arrangement to a “forcing” arrangement, and (5) installing an “overlap” auxiliary

ventilation system. If the required air volumes in the active areas are more than the primary

ventilation system is able to provide, other measures may need to be considered in order to

increase airflow delivery. This may include the installation of a ventilation-on-demand

 26

(VOD) control system, adding booster fans to improve airflow distribution in localized

areas, and/or upgrading the surface fans.

In hot and humid underground mines, the heat index used for comfort evaluation must be

carefully selected. This heat index shall provide protection for the mine workers as much

as possible. The primary objective in selecting a heat stress index is simplicity. It is more

likely that the environmental engineers and the mine personnel will accept and employ a

thermal index which has been presented in a format that can be well understood and easily

applied. On the other hand, a simple thermal index may limit its relevance to a very specific

case or a localized area. However, the necessity to apply numerous modifications to simple

indices in order to adjust them for various work conditions, can negate the apparent

advantage of a thermal index to be directly used to protect the mine workers.

When miners are working directly in the hot mine environment, they must stay hydrated,

take breaks, and wear the proper attire. It is important to stay hydrated as dehydration not

only reduces work output but also puts the mine worker at risk for heat related injuries

(Brake, 2001). If a mine worker is performing moderate work for less than two hours during

a shift, it is recommended that they drink 1 cup (6 ounces) of water every 15 to 20 minutes.

If a mine worker is performing strenuous work and/or is performing moderate work for

more than 2 hours then they should take breaks and drink hydrating fluids containing

electrolytes throughout the shift (Jacklitsch et al., 2016). Short, intermittent breaks are

recommended over a single, long break during a shift as work-rest cycles are better for

reducing fatigue. If at all possible, these breaks should be conducted in a cooler area.

There are a number of available cooling systems and strategies, which vary as a function

of cooling capability, cost, mobility, and efficiency. No cooling system is necessarily better
 27

than another, as the various mine specific conditions may require a cooling method, which

is unique to a particular operation. The majority of the most widespread cooling methods

as well as some less common cooling systems are basically applicable to the hot and humid

underground mines in USA. How these systems are applied will vary on a case by case

basis for each mine based on a variety of factors such as: the combined heat load of the

mine, geographic location, mining depth, employed mining method(s), material handling

system, level of mechanization, diesel equipment fleet, and economic constraints. An

underground mine’s cooling strategy should be planned and designed by taking into

account that an underground operation is a “dynamic” system, as the mine continually

deepens and new adjacent orebodies are being developed. Cooling units can be upgraded

and different combinations of cooling systems can be utilized. This is important not only

for the safety and health of the U.S. mine workers, but also for the sustainability of the U.S.

mining industry.

Clothing and personal protective equipment (PPE) can significantly reduce the heat

exchange processes, as they insulate the human body and reduce the available skin surface

area much needed to promote evaporative cooling. Other industries have begun using

cooling garments which utilize air cooling, water circulation, and gas expansion systems

in an effort to cool the workers. However, recent research has concluded that the currently

available cooling garments aren’t yet fully compatible to be used in hot and humid

underground mines. For this reason, whenever possible mine workers should avoid wearing

multiple layers and should wear clothing made of materials which promote heat exchange

and moisture transfer between the human body and the ambient surroundings. While mine

workers should follow these practices, the environmental engineers are responsible to
 28

establish safe policies and protocols to be followed in order to prevent heat-related injuries

in underground mines.
 29

Chapter 3 Selecting an Appropriate Heat Stress Index to

Protect the Workers in Hot and Humid Underground Mines

3.1. Introduction

Hot and humid environments can negatively impact the performance, overall productivity

and most importantly the ability of the underground workforce to perform work in a safe

manner (Brakes & Bates, 2002). Evaluations of the underground thermal environment are

becoming more important due to the proliferations of health and safety problems related to

adverse climatic conditions in underground miners (Carpenter et al., 2015). These health

and safety problems are normally in the form of thermal discomfort, heat-related illnesses

such as thermal stress, heat cramps, heat rash, heat stroke, etc. (Donoghue, 2004).

A heat stress index integrates personal, physiological, and thermal environment parameters

into a single number for a “quantitative” assessment of exposing mine workers to heat

stress (McPherson, 1962; Graveling et al., 1988). Heat stress indices can be grouped into:

(1) rational indices, which are based on calculations involving the heat balance equation;

(2) empirical indices, based on objective and subjective strain assessments; and (3) direct

indices, which involve direct measurements of environmental parameters such as dry-bulb

temperature, wet-bulb temperature, relative humidity and airflow velocity (Brake and Bate,

2002; Epstein & Moran, 2006; Jacklitsch et al., 2016).

Since 1905 over 160 heat stress indices have been proposed for various thermal

environments (Freitas & Grigorieva, 2015). Figure 3.1 shows the cumulative number of

heat stress indices that were proposed from 1905 to 2012. The graph reveals two important

facts about heat stress indices. Firstly, there has been no single index that can be used as a
 30

“universal index” (mentioned by Belding, 1970; Gagge & Nishi, 1976; Brake & Bates,

2002; Epstein & Moran, 2006). A universal index would be an index that includes a range

of comfort limits based on different metabolic rates. Secondly, a large number of heat stress

indices may bring confusion in choosing the appropriate one for a specific industry or work

environment. The large number of available heat stress indices and the lack of a defined

procedure to determine which index to be used for a particular climate has rendered comfort

and environmental engineers to rely on guesswork in choosing an index for work climate

evaluation. Many of the underground mines in the US and world-wide can select an index

while they are unaware of its limitations (Observation of the authors from several

underground gold mines in Nevada). This is partly occurring due to the fact that measuring

and collecting a large amount of physical and human-related parameters and subjecting

them to complex climatic modeling is not simple and practical.

Figure 3.1. Cumulative number of heat stress indices from 1905 to 2012
It has been agreed that an ideal heat index is needed to accurately assess the climatic

conditions on a regular basis and protect the workers in hot and humid conditions.

Furthermore, this index would need to be user friendly and computationally

straightforward for the environmental practitioners (Jacklitsch et al., 2016). This research
 31

study posed the question of which index can be recommended for a particular climate and

work condition? In this paper, a method is used to compare a thermal comfort model with

some of the most widely used heat indices in underground mines. The method is applied

to predict the “comfort zone” and to recommend an index based on its performance as close

as possible to the “comfort zone”. The comparative analysis uses comfort data including

air temperature, airflow velocity, humidity, and estimated physiological parameters such

as clothing and activity rates.

3.2. Thermal Comfort

Humans are comfortable within a very small range of core body temperatures. Biochemical

processes in the human body will not function if the temperature becomes too low or too

high. At high temperatures, enzymes lose their activity and at low temperatures there is

inadequate energy to continue metabolic processes (Niash, 2015). Humans can tolerate

extreme core temperatures below 35°C or above 41°C for only brief periods of time (Niosh,

2015). There are mechanisms by which the body can regulate its core temperature both at

rest and during activity, and in both hot and cold or humid environments, along with health

risks that are associated with physical activity in the aforesaid environments (King, 2004).

Through its intricate temperature regulation, the human body is able to reach a state of

thermal equilibrium with the surrounding environment when the variation of internal

energy, at the body core level is equal to zero (Fanger, 1970).

Assessment of “thermal comfort” must start with the appreciation that comfort is a state of

mind. It is extremely difficult to classify the many factors which affect thermal comfort.

The interaction between the physical demand imposed upon an individual, his/her

physiological status and his/her psychological attitudes must be considered in interaction

 32

with social customs, tangible perceptions and the likes (Goldman, 1970). Since thermal

comfort is rather subjective and restrictive, it is better to define a comfort zone within which

most workers will be comfortable. This necessitates the need to define a “zone” in which

most of the workers will consider comfortable, the so called “comfort zone”. This comfort

zone will be ascribed using the climatic and physiological parameters of the mine

environment and some existing thermal comfort models.

3.2.1. Thermal Comfort Zone:

Thermal comfort is the condition of mind which expresses satisfaction with the thermal

environment (ASHRAE, 2007, 2009). Based on ASHRAE definition, the “thermal comfort

zone” is the condition that satisfies 80% of sedentary persons within the environment.

According to Fanger (1970), three parameters need to be satisfied for a person to be

considered in the thermal comfort zone. These parameters are: (1) the worker’s sweat rate

needs to be within comfort limits; (2) the worker is in heat balance; (3) the worker’s mean

skin temperature is within comfort limits. There are six main factors (air temperature,

relative humidity, radiant temperature, air velocity, metabolic rate, and clothing) affecting

the thermal comfort, which can be perceived as both environmental and personal (Fanger,

1970; Brake & Bates, 2002; Donoghue, 2004). These are briefly described, as follows:

3.2.1.1. Air Temperature: is defined as the temperature of the ambient air surrounding the

occupant that defines the net heat flow between the human body and its environment.

Temperature is the most significant component to the experience of comfort in an

environment. When the surrounding dry and wet bulb temperatures are high, this process

becomes more difficult and we may overheat or feel warm. When surrounding
 33

temperatures are low, the rate of heat loss becomes more rapid, and we may feel

uncomfortably cold (Boduch and Fincher, 2010).

3.2.1.2. Mean Radiant Temperature: can be defined as the temperature of a uniform

enclosure whereby a small black sphere at the test point would have the same radiation

transfer as it does with the real environment (Boduch and Fincher, 2010). In practice, heat

transfer from radiation is assumed to be negligible in underground mines. Therefore, mean

radiant temperature is considered to be equal to ambient air temperature.

3.2.1.3. Airflow Velocity: is the average speed (with respect to location and time) of the air

to which the body is exposed. Airflow velocity distribution is a key factor influencing heat

and mass transfer. Airflow velocity affects both convective and evaporative heat transfer

coefficients, and thus influences thermal comfort conditions (McIntyre, 1978). The

reaction of a person to air movement is likely to be a complicated phenomenon as it

depends on the climatic parameters including temperature, humidity, clothing worn,

metabolic rate, and resulting skin temperature (McIntyre, 1978). The designed airflow

velocities along working faces of underground mines tend to range from 0.3 and 4.0 m/s

(McPherson, 1984; Mousset-Jones, 1986).

3.2.1.4. Relative Humidity: is the ratio between the actual amount of water vapor in the air

and the maximum amount of water vapor that the air can hold at that air temperature. While

temperature is the most important factor in generating a phenomenological sense of thermal

comfort, relative humidity plays a critical role in conjunction with the dry-bulb and wet-

bulb temperatures to provide a sense of comfort/discomfort. High levels of relative

humidity can work against the evaporative cooling effects of sweating and leave the body

prone to over-heating. When relative humidity gets too high, discomfort develops, either
 34

due to the feeling of the moisture itself (ASHRAE, 2005) which is unable to evaporate from

the skin, or due to increased friction between skin and clothing with skin moisture

(ASHRAE, 2005).

3.2.1.5. Worker’s Clothing: which is usually described as the thermal resistance or

insulation level between the human body and its environment, with the clothing insulation

typically quantified in terms of its “Clo” values (1 Clo = 0.155 m2/W insulation value).

3.2.1.6. Worker’s Metabolic Rate: is the energy released per unit time by the oxidation

processes in the human body and is dependent on the amount of muscular activity.

Metabolic rate varies according to the intensity of activity performed. Metabolic rate is also

proportional to the body weight, body surface area, health, sex, age, amount of clothing,

and surrounding thermal and atmospheric conditions (Auliciems & Szokolay, 2007).

According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning

Engineers (ASHRAE), the interrelationship between these factors determines the climatic

conditions acceptable to a majority of the occupants within a working environment

(ASHRAE, 2005). ASHRAE’s definition of comfort zone is rather complex, however it can

be altered through some estimations to a zone which strictly depends on comfort

parameters.

3.3. Heat Stress Indices

The idea of the thermal index goes back to 18th century (McPherson, 1962). Without

considering the dry-bulb temperature, perhaps the first published heat stress index was the

wet-bulb temperature proposed by Haldane (1905). Since then a large number of heat stress

indices have been proposed. Many of the earlier indices only included four environmental
 35

factors, such as: Effective Temperature (ET), Equivalent Temperature (Eeq), Operative

Temperature (OpT), and Wet-bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT). Later, new indices took

into account clothing and the metabolic rate as behavioral parameters. Heat stress indices

have been employed in different engineering applications. Presently, no one single index

has gained universal acceptance. Belding (1970) and Gagge and Nishi (1976) pointed that

having a unique valid system for rating heat stress is not possible since the interaction

between the climatic parameters is complicated. Many of the current indices were

developed for a specific use. Each heat stress index has special advantages that makes it

more suitable for a particular work environment. Despite extensive research work (see

Table 3.1), it is currently not possible to quantitatively compare the available heat indices

using a valid method. Therefore, it is the user’s responsibility to examine each index and

select the one that best suits the defined thermal climate and protects the mine workers.

Table 3.1. A literature review on heat stress indices comparison methods

Comparison Method Author(s)
Experiment MacPherson (1960)
Acclimatized and/or un-acclimatized men and/or women Klemm & Hall (1972)
Range of work and/or resting conditions Ljunberg et al. (1979)
Wide range of climatic conditions Pulket et al. (1980)
Different environmental and behavioral parameters Morris & Graveling (1986)
Mairiaux & Malchaire (1995)
Comparison between Direct Indices Epstein & Moran (2006)
Summary of indices and their correlation to thermal comfort
Comparison between Temperature - Humidity Indices Alfano et al. (2011)
Comparison between rational methods and temperature-humidity
indices
Data Analysis Beshir & Ramsey (1988)
Large or small climatic databases as input parameters of climatic Blazejczyk et al. (2012)
condition
Assumed data
Rational Method Brake & Bates (2002)
Concept of limiting metabolic rate Zuhairy & Sayigh (1993)
Energy balance equation
 36

Heat stress indices have several safety and health applications in the mining industry and

other businesses. Among these applications the following are mentioned:

 Setting exposure limits or threshold limit values: Perhaps, the most important

application of a heat stress index is to define the maximum exposure time or safety

limits (Lee, 1958).

 Defining the comfort limits: Another important application of a heat stress index is to

define the comfort zone, which is applicable in the interest area (e.g. office, work area).

 Determining the optimum control measures: Heat stress indices can be used to

evaluate and select the measures and available options of controlling heat such as air

movement, air conditioning, work/break protocols, etc.

 Past exposures evaluation: Heat stress indices can be also used to assess past

exposures to heat in underground mines. For this purpose, more comprehensive indices

can give better results.

 Evaluation of safe work: An index can be a good indication of the limits of safe work.

Particularly, in sport, military and mining industry settings, use of an appropriate index

can help prevent heat and cold related illnesses.

 Climate zone classifications: Heat stress indices can be used to determine climate

zones. These classifications are important to assure a safe and comfortable work

environment.

There are some general limitations that should be taken into account for many of the heat

stress indices, as follows:

 37

 Many of the indices do not include a wide range of climatic conditions. These indices

may be precise for a climatic condition (e.g. warm environment), but inappropriate for

others. A good example is the scale of the “Equivalent Temperature Index”, which does

not extend beyond 24 ˚C. Therefore, an engineer may have to consider and work with

more than one heat stress index if the work environment changes.

 Inbuilt errors exist in some of these indices. Several indices (e.g. direct indices) are

developed based on algebraic or statistical models. There is some degree of error when

these mathematical methods are applied. An example is the error of the “effective

temperature index” scale in wind speed at high temperature (Alfano et al., 2011).

 Important factors such as acclimatization cannot be included (McPherson, 1962; Budd,

2008). For a given level of heat stress, heat strain experienced by an acclimatized

individual is different from an un-acclimatized person. Many of the indices do not

distinguish between acclimatized and un-acclimatized subjects in their application.

 Brake & Bates (2002) states that most heat stress indices were developed for externally

paced work. Increasing degree of mechanization of heavy tasks and new regulations

result in informed workers that support self-pacing in thermally stressed climates.

 Averaging methods are not always physiologically valid. Many of the indices are

developed based on thermal stress of the workers and averaging of large experimental

data. Though, the reaction of the individuals to heat load can be modified by age,

gender, etc. Furthermore, the response of a group of self-paced and acclimatized

workers to heat will largely differ from a group of un-acclimatized and less experienced

workers.
 38

 The validity and reliability of many indices are questionable. For example, the

Discomfort Index (DI) was developed as a simplified version of WBGT (Alfano, 2011).

In the WBGT index, globe temperature (GT) measures the combined effect of radiant

heat, air temperature, and air speed. The DI does not take into account the air speed by

replacing GT with ambient temperature, which may cause significant errors in

evaluating some climatic conditions.

 The primary purpose of evaluating the climatic conditions is to assess the work

environment and re-design the control system (e.g. ventilation, cooling, work/break

protocols) in order to meet safety, health and comfort indicators for the mine workers

(McPherson, 1962). None of the indices can take into account all the comfort

determining factors and their interrelation. Consequently, the work environment should

be assessed regularly irrespective of how comprehensive is the index.

3.4. Comparison between the Heat Stress Indices based on Pierce Two-

Node Model

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a revised

recommendation standard in 2016 titled: “Occupational Exposure to Heat and Hot

Environments”, and proposed a selection criteria along with heat stress indices to be used

in hot and humid environments. It recommends several heat stress indices including direct

indices (e.g. dry-bulb temperature and wet-bulb temperature), rational indices (e.g.

operative temperature, skin wetness, and Belding-Hatch heat stress index), and empirical

indices (e.g. the effective temperature, wet-bulb globe temperature, wet-globe temperature,

and universal thermal climate index) (Jacklitsch et al., 2016).

 39

It is not practical to review and compare all the available indices based on the above

mentioned methods. Generally, we know that to measure and collect a large number of

physiological and human-related factors is not simple and practical in the underground

mines. To investigate the validity of a heat index for use under realistic underground

mining conditions, a climatic model based on the mine climate data, including air tempera-

ture, relative humidity, airflow velocity, and the physiological parameters of the miners in

the form of metabolic rate and clothing was developed and proposed for mine climate

assessments. The radiant temperature was assumed to be equal to the air temperature in the

algorithm of the model since the radiation heat transfer is negligible compared to

convective and conductive heat transfers.

For this research study, the Pierce Two-Node model was selected, as its algorithm was

straightforward and easy to understand as a computer application for thermal comfort

assessments, specifically, for mining engineering applications. Other models of thermal

comfort (e.g. Fanger, 1970) are also worth considering.

The Pierce Two-Node model was developed at the John B. Pierce Foundation at Yale

University. The model has been continually expanding since its first publication in 1970

(Gagge et al., 1971). The most recent version of the model appeared in the 1986 ASHRAE

Transactions (Gagge et al., 1976). In the Pierce Two-Node model solution, the human body

is modeled as two concentric cylinders, where the inner cylinder represents the core of the

human body, and the thin outer cylinder represents the skin shell (Doherty & Arens, 1988).

The skin and core temperatures were calculated as a function of time by solving the heat

balance at the core and skin nodes.

 40

The rate of heat stored by the body (S) is given as the rate of metabolic heat production

(M) minus the heat energy lost to the environment through the skin and respiratory tract,

and the mechanical energy lost due to work as shown in equation 3.1:

M – W – Qsk - F ± C ± R = S (W/m2) Eq. 3.1

A simple expanded version of equation 3.1 is presented in equation 3.2, as follows:

𝑀[(1 − 𝜂) − 0.0173(𝑃𝑠𝑎𝑡 − 𝑃𝑎 ) − 0.0014(34 − 𝑡𝑎 )] − 16.7(0.06 +

0.94𝑊𝑟𝑠𝑤 )ℎ𝑐 (𝑃𝑠𝑘 − 𝑃𝑎 )𝐹𝑝𝑐𝑙 − ℎ(𝑡𝑠𝑘 − 𝑡𝑎 )𝐹𝑐𝑙 = 𝛥𝑠
Eq. 2.2

𝑡𝑠𝑘𝑖𝑛 = 30 + 0.138 𝑡𝑎 + 0.254 𝑃𝑎 - 0.57 𝑉𝑎 + 0.0128 M - 0.553 Rcl Eq. 3.3

𝐹𝑝𝑐𝑙 = 1/(1 + 0.344 𝐼𝑐𝑙 Eq. 3.4

ℎ𝑐 = 0.608𝑃0.6 𝑣𝑎 0.6 Eq. 3.5

ℎ𝑟 = 4.61(1 + (𝑡𝑎 + 𝑡𝑠𝑘 )⁄546)3 Eq. 3.7

ℎ = ℎ𝑐 + ℎ𝑟 Eq. 3.8

𝐹𝑐𝑙 = 1⁄(1 + 0.155ℎ𝑐 𝐼𝑐𝑙 ) Eq. 3.9

3.5. Results

Several heat stress indices mostly used for work comfort evaluation in mines were studied.

The only exclusion criteria applied in selecting an index was that the index equation be

unambiguously stated in the publication and that the required inputs are among our

measured and estimated ventilation and climatic parameters such as relative humidity, air

temperature, airflow velocity, barometric pressure, metabolic rate and clothing. Indices

with input parameters which formed variants of the measured parameters were also
 41

considered. Heat stress indices, mostly applied in underground mines, were calculated

using the publications listed in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2. Heat index algorithms that have been used in this study.
No. Index Formula Reference
1 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝐷𝐼) = 0.4 × 𝑡𝑤 + 0.4 × 𝑡𝑎 + 8.3 Thom (1959)
2 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝐷𝐼) = 0.5 × 𝑡𝑤 + 0.5 × 𝑡𝑎 Sohar et al. (1962)
3 𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝑀𝐷𝐼) = 0.75 × 𝑡𝑤 + 0.3 × 𝑡𝑎 Moran et al. (1999)
4 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝐷𝐼) Kyle W.J., (1994)
= 𝑡𝑎 − (0.55 − 0.0055 ∗ 𝑅𝐻) × (𝑡𝑎 − 14.5)
5 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑜ℎ𝑦𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝑇𝐻𝐼) Schoen (2005)
= 0.55 × 𝑡𝑤 + 0.2 × 𝑡𝑑𝑒𝑤 + 5.3
6 𝐻𝑢𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑥 = 𝑡𝑎 + (5/9) × (𝑒 − 10) Masterson and
Richardson (1979)
7 𝑊𝑒𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑏 𝑔𝑙𝑜𝑏𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 (𝑊𝐵𝐺𝑇) = 0.7 × 𝑡𝑤 + 0.3 × 𝑡𝑎 Yaglou and Minard
(1957)
8 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 (𝐸𝑇)
𝑅𝐻 Houghton & Yaglou
= 𝑡𝑎 − 0.4 × (𝑡𝑎 − 10) × (1 − ( ))
100 (1923)
9 37−(37−𝑡𝑎) Gagge et al. (1971)
𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 (𝑁𝐸𝑇) = (0.68−0.0014×𝑅𝐻) +
(1/(1.76 × 1.4 × 𝑣 0.75 − 0.29 × 𝑡𝑎 × (1 − 0.01 × 𝑅𝐻)))

10 1 Lee (1956, 1958)

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 (𝑇𝑆𝐼) = × 𝑡𝑤 + 3/4 × 𝑡𝑎 − 2 × 𝑣 0.5
3

The method evaluated each heat stress index to determine whether it conforms to the

ascribed comfort zone in the Pierce Two-Node model. The modeling results of several

cases for varying activity rates of 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 (W/m2), and airflow velocity

from 0.1 m/s to 1.5 m/s, relative humidity from 0% to 100%, skin wetness of 0.5 to 1,

efficiency of 5% to 15%, and air temperature from 0˚C to 50˚C were studied. A non-

acclimated worker is assumed to wear coverall and the underground environment was

assumed to be a uniform environment (Ta = Tr). Based on this criteria, an “appropriate”

index or set of indices were selected to be used in the prevailing mine climate and
 42

physiological conditions (see Table 3.3). Any heat index algorithm can be used with any

preferred activity and airflow velocity rate, in order to be assessed for acceptability.

Table 3.3. Recommended heat stress indices for comfort assessment based on various metabolic rates
Metabolic rate Appropriate heat stress index
(W/m2)
100 ET, NET, TSI, WBGT, Humidex, THI, DI (1962), DI (1959), DI (1990), DI
(1959), THI, DI (1968), DI (1998), DI (1963)
150 NET (RH<80), TSI (30<RH<70), ET, WBGT, Humidex, THI (RH>50), DI
(1959), DI (1998), DI (1963), DI (1959) (RH<60)
200 Humidex, DI (1959), NET (RH<50), TSI (20<RH<40), ET (RH<50), WBGT
(RH<80), THI (RH<50),
250 Humidex, DI (1959), NET (RH < 50), TSI (20 < RH <40), ET (RH < 50),
WBGT (RH < 70), DI (1959)
300 Humidex (RH < 50), DI (1963) (RH < 50), DI (1959)

Figure 3.2 and 3.3 give visual valuations of how each particular heat stress index is

performing relative to the generated comfort zone and provide a clear indication on the

ability of the index to protect the mine workers. Contour plots depicted in Figures 3.2

demonstrate that, in uniform environments (Ta = Tr), with airflow velocity of 1.5 m/s and

for an activity rate of 200 W/m2, the “discomfort” index, in general deviates from the

comfort zone. Furthermore, the “effective temperature” index does not perform very well

relative to the comfort zone. However, the “humidex” heat index tends to perform quite

well especially at higher humidity rates, which are typical of deep and hot underground

mines. In terms of index performance relative to the comfort zone under these climatic and

physiological conditions, The result of the simulation shows that the “wet bulb globe

temperature” (WBGT) index seems to perform better than the other three indices and will

therefore be an ideal candidate to be selected for assessing the comfort of the mine workers

at metabolic rate of 200 W/m2. Furthermore, the graphs show that the heat stress indices

tend to be noisier relative to the comfort zone compared to the results obtained in the first
 43

case. This obviously reflects the heavy impact of an increased metabolic rate (e.g. work

intensity) on the comfort of mine workers. At the metabolic rate of 250 W/m2, however,

all of the above indices failed to predict the comfort zone, particularly at high relative

humidity, which is the case in most of underground operations (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.2. Convergence between selected heat stress indices (yellow) and comfort zone (blue), (M=200
W/m2, V=1.5 m/s, Wrse = 0.7, Clothing: coverall).
 44

Figure 3.3. Convergence between selected heat stress indices (yellow) and comfort zone (blue), (M=250
W/m2, V=1.5 m/s, Wrse = 0.7, Clothing: coverall).

3.6. Recommended Selection Criteria

The problem with NIOSH (Jacklitsch et al., 2016) selection criteria is that no existing index

meets all the requirements proposed by NIOSH. On the one hand, direct and empirical

indices have relatively simple measurement and calculation procedures. They however, as

shown in this study, do not incorporate the physiological comfort parameters for evaluating

total strain. This is because many of these indices are developed using statistical and simple

mathematical methods and are not based on the energy balance equation. Conversely,

rational indices may be more comprehensive and accurate compared to other types of

indices. However, the measurement and calculation procedures are complex and difficult

to comprehend. Consequently, many of the underground mines in the US and world-wide

may select an index while they are unaware of its limitations.

In extreme hot and humid conditions often faced by mine workers, the heat index used for

comfort evaluation must be carefully selected. It should provide protection for the mine

workers as much as possible. In order to optimize this selection process, it is recommended

that index selection be classified based on two phases of mining, namely: (a) Planning

and Design Phase; and (b) Operational Phase. This is essential since a well assessed
 45

thermal condition in the planning and design phase will minimize the burden of managing

heat stress in the operational phase. Furthermore, through this approach a more complex

and complete analysis can be carried out in the planning and design phase as opposed to

the operational phase, where it is essential that the index to be specifically selected for the

local conditions and should not be complicated. In view of this premise the following

factors are suggested to be considered when selecting an index based on the two discussed

phases:

(a) Planning and Design Phase

 The index should be applicable for the purposes of underground mine climatic

guidelines;

 The accuracy of the heat stress index must be proven by means of previous applications,

or use;

 The purpose of using a heat stress index is to evaluate comfort limits, safe work limits,

and/or to determine the optimum control method;

 All major factors contributing to the heat load during mining activities should be

included in the work comfort assessment;

 The included factors should have a valid weight in relation to the total heat strain;

 Interpretation of the results should be straight-forward.

(b) Operational Phase

 The index should be applicable for the purposes of underground mine climatic

guidelines;
 46

 The purpose of using a heat stress index is to set exposure limits or threshold limit values

under a wide range of environmental conditions;

 All the contributing factor should be measurable or reasonably assumed;

 The measurements, measuring instruments and protocols, and interpretation of the

collected data and results should not interfere with worker’s performance;

 Measurements and calculations should be simple;

 Interpretation of the index should be straight-forward.

3.7. Discussion

Which heat index is the most appropriate? The relationship between the comfort zone and

the heat indices is simple and easy to comprehend. An almost superimposed relationship

defines an “ideal” index for the conditions that describe the comfort zone and index. The

primary appeal of heat indices should be simplicity (McPherson, 1992). It is more likely

that mine ventilation engineers and the mining crew in general will approve a thermal index

due, in part, to the fact that the index can be presented in a format that they can understand

and apply. That is, if the index is simple. Unfortunately, simple outputs also limit the

appropriateness of the value to a specific or special case. The necessity of using numerous

modifications to simple indices in order to adjust for various conditions, to a large extent,

negates the apparent advantage of indices (Roghanchi & Kocsis, 2017).

The comfort model used measured and estimated comfort parameters and compared output

data generated from model runs with the measured ventilation and climatic parameters such

as airflow velocity and activity rates. The computer algorithm for this model is based on

the numerical solution of the heat balance equation and the heat transfer coefficients
 47

recommended by the Pierce Two-Node model. Furthermore, the environment engineers

are provided a tool to assess, identify and recommend a simple but appropriate index to be

applied underground through the use of this simulation method described in this paper. The

model run results depicted various responses of heat indices to different climate and

physiological conditions. The results can be used to propose various suitable heat indices

for work comfort evaluation. The method though complicated, provides an avenue for

simple indices to be evaluated based on a comprehensive set of comfort parameters instead

of their conventional reliance on the climate and mostly on two parameters only, the air

temperature and humidity.

In conclusion, although there are many heat stress indices, there has never been a well-

defined method or process to select an appropriate index for a particular underground

climate. This has limited mine environmental engineers to select a heat stress index/indices

based largely on intuition and guesswork. This method presents an important tool to assess

and select the most appropriate index for certain climatic conditions in order to protect the

underground workers from heat related illnesses. Although complex, the method presents

results that are easy to interpret and understand than any of the currently available

evaluation methods. It also gives the added advantage that simple indices can be assessed

based on physiological comfort parameters. However, more research work is needed to

further enhance the method and validate the climatic model to accurately assess the climatic

conditions and select the most appropriate and safe index that will protect the mine

workers.
 48

Chapter 4 Evaluation of the Atmospheric and Underground

Environmental Conditions by Means of Continuous Climatic
Monitoring Systems – Lessons Learned

4.1. Measurement of heat stress in underground mines

Heat stress is the net heat load to which a workers is exposed from the combined

contributions of environmental and physiological parameters which results in heat storage

in the body (Jacklitsch et al., 2016). Heat stress may be assessed by measuring the climatic

and physical factors of the environment and then evaluating their effects on the human

body via an appropriate heat stress index.

Metabolism in humans is accompanied by heat generation, with the core body temperature

remaining a constant at about 36.9°C (37 ± 1°C) and in contact with surrounding climate

temperature; mine workers have sensations expressed as either warm or cold. When

workers are subjected to ambient temperatures greater than the threshold limits, it causes

physiological effects expressed in the following forms: loss of attentiveness to other

people’s activities, taking regular rests or breaks, a longing to hurriedly complete the task,

irritability, reduced concentration and reduction in sensitivity (Navarro Torres & Raghu,

2011).

In underground mines, there are many sources of heat which cause the increase of

temperature of air during its travel through mine airways. The mines intake air temperature

gradually increases due to the depth and the length of air travel through the underground

opening. One of the main sources of heat in underground mines is the strata temperature.

Other sources of heat to the air in the underground atmosphere are air auto-compression,
 49

machinery emission, explosive detonation, human metabolism and mine water thermal

influx. The detail definition of major heat sources was presented in Chapter 2 (Section 2.3).

Heat is usually the dominant environmental problem in deep metal mines. Classifying and

analyzing the heat sources in a mine allow for calculation of the total heat load. Stationary

and moving heat sources are also necessary in understanding and modeling the heat and

humidity transport. The potential heat sources in an underground mine are:

Table 4.1. Heat sources in underground mines

Heat Sources Level of Significance Nevada’s Precious metal mines
Auto-compression Low to high Moderate
Strata heat Low to very high High (geothermal activity)
Underground water Low to moderate Low
Machinery Low to very high High (highly mechanized mine)
Human metabolism Negligible to low Negligible (highly mechanized)
Oxidation Negligible to low Negligible
Blasting Negligible to low Negligible
Rock movement Low to moderate Negligible
Pipelines Negligible to moderate Negligible

To understand and model heat and humidity transport, all major heat sources in an

underground mine need to be identified and quantified. There can be a considerable

difference in the spectrum of the heat and mine power source distributions between

different mines due to many factors such as depth, mechanization, power sources,

geothermal activity and rock thermal properties.

 50

4.2. Measurement of Important Environmental Parameters in

Underground Mines

4.2.1. Air Temperature

Ambient air temperature (air temperature/ dry-bulb temperature) defined as the

temperature of the ambient air surrounding the worker that defines the net heat flow

between the human body and its environment. The air temperature is the most significant

component to the feel of comfort in a work environment. When the surrounding dry is high,

this process becomes more difficult and a worker may overheat or feel warm. When the

surrounding temperature is low, the rate of heat loss becomes more rapid, and the worker

may feel uncomfortably cold (Boduch and Fincher, 2010).

Several types of instrument are available to measure the ambient temperature whether as a

single or continuous measurements. These instrument are equipped with different types of

thermometer available including liquid-in-glass thermometers, thermocouples, and

resistance thermometer. Regardless of the instrument type, following considerations

should be taken to account:

1. The thermometer must be within the range of the temperature to be measured.

2. The thermometer must be stabilized before taking any measurements. Particularly,

if the instrument is stored in a case or pocket.

3. The measurement must be taken in contact or close to the area of thermal interest.

4. Radiant condition must be considered. Measurement must be taken away from fans,

compressors, pumps, mine vehicles, mine equipment, or any other heat source

where the surface temperature is different from the air temperature.

 51

5. It is recommended to take several measurements at a same location in several time

steps in order to avoid any unusual temperature reading due to release of some

gasses from the rib or back, oxidation, idling of equipment close to the unit,

groundwater and more.

4.1.2. Relative humidity

Humidity, amount of water vapor within a given space, is usually measured as relative

humidity, the ratio between the actual amount of water vapor in the air and the maximum

amount of water vapor that the air can hold at that air temperature and barometric pressure.

While temperature is the most important factor in generating a phenomenological sense of

thermal comfort, relative humidity plays a critical role as a result of the dry-bulb and wet-

bulb temperatures to provide a sense of comfort/discomfort. High levels of relative

humidity can work against the evaporative cooling effects of sweating and leave the body

prone to over-heating. When relative humidity gets too high, discomfort develops, either

due to the feeling of the moisture itself (ASHRAE, 2005) which is unable to evaporate from

the skin, or due to increased friction between skin and clothing with skin moisture

(ASHRAE, 2005).

Relative humidity can also be measured using several commercial instruments in the form

of water vapor pressure, wet-bulb temperature, relative humidity, due point temperature

and etc. Most of the hand held instrument also measure relative humidity. When measuring

the relative humidity it is important to:

1. Calibrate the instrument before any measurements. The actual relative humidity can

be significantly different from a measurement using uncalibrated instrument.

 52

2. Take several measurements at a same location to insure that the measurement is not

influenced by unusual activities.

3. If humidity is measured in a form other than relative humidity, three psychrometric

parameters are needed to calculate the relative humidity. Therefore, it is a much

easier to measure relative humidity if possible.

4. When a continuous measurement method is used, the measurements should be used

with caution if the relative humidity is higher than 80%.

4.1.3. Air velocity

Airflow Velocity: is the average speed (with respect to location and time) of the air to

which the worker’s body is exposed. Airflow velocity distribution is a key factor

influencing heat and mass transfer. Airflow velocity affects both the convective and

evaporative heat transfer coefficients, and thus influences thermal comfort conditions

(McIntyre, 1978). The reaction of a worker to air movement is likely to be a complicated

phenomenon as it depends on the climatic parameters including temperature, humidity,

clothing, metabolic rate, and resulting skin temperature (McIntyre, 1978). The designed

airflow velocities along working faces of underground mines tend to range from 1.0 to 3.0

m/s (McPherson, 1984; Mousset-Jones, 1986).

There are several instruments that can be used to measure the relative air velocity in an

airway including van anemometer, thermoanemometers, pitot-tube and hand-held

instruments. Several methods can also be used to measure the air velocity including fixed

point measurement, smoked tube, Pitot-static tube, fixed point traverse, and moving

traverse. It is usually recommended to take the average of at least three measurements with

5% difference as the relative air velocity.

 53

4.1.5. Barometric pressure

Barometric pressure is the pressure exerted by the weight of air. Barometric pressure is

elevated in deep underground mines and reduced at high altitude mines (Donoghue, 2004).

Increased barometric pressures in deep mines increase air temperatures, increase

convective heat exchange and reduce sweat evaporation rates (Gagge & Gonzalez, 1996).

Correct measurement of barometric pressure directly impacts upon the calculation of wet-

bulb temperature (Hardcastle & Butler, 2008).

4.1.6. Metabolic rate

Worker’s Metabolic Rate: is the energy released per unit time by the oxidation processes

in the human body and is dependent on the amount of muscular activity. Metabolic rate

varies according to the intensity of activity performed. Metabolic rate is also proportional

to the body weight, body surface area, health, sex, age, amount and type of clothing, fitness,

acclimatization, and surrounding thermal and atmospheric conditions (Auliciems &

Szokolay, 2007). Metabolic rate can be measured directly or estimated using less accurate

(but much more practical) methods on the basis of tables of energy expenditure or task

analysis tables (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1. Estimate of metabolic rate for activity (ISO 7243, 1989)
Rating Activity Metabolic Rate
0 Resting M ≤ 65 W/m2
1 Low metabolic rate 65 < M ≤ 130 W/m2
2 Moderate metabolic rate 130 < M ≤ 200 W/m2
3 High metabolic rate 200 < M ≤ 260 W/m2
4 Very high metabolic rate M > 260 W/m2
 54

4.2. Continuous Monitoring Systems for Assessment of Climatic

Conditions in Underground Mines

There are many options for the measurement and monitoring of dry bulb temperature (Td),

barometric pressure (PB) and relative humidity (RH) on the market. The monitoring

systems can be categorized into three groups: hand-held climatic instruments, continuous

monitoring systems, and real-time monitoring systems. Table 4.1 shows a comparison

between these types of monitoring systems.

The intent of climatic modeling in Nevada's underground mines is to identify and quantify

the heat generated from the various sources in underground mines and to design and modify

current airflow delivery systems. Because of this, the monitoring system selection is

limited by the necessity of having one durable unit to measure the climatic parameters on

a continuous time interval with the capability of storing and downloading the climatic data.

Data storage is necessary because of the need to record data while there is no activity in

the area and during the various phases of the mining cycle (e.g. drilling, explosive loading,

blasting and mucking). The continuous monitoring units that were used throughout this

research project were the “ACR Smart-Reader Plus 4” multi-channel data loggers (Table

4.2). These units continuously monitor and record dry-bulb temperature (Td), relative

humidity (RH) and barometric pressure (PB). From these parameters, the wet-bulb (Tw)

temperature can also be calculated. These small devices can typically be installed at

strategic locations to collect climatic data repeatedly. The recorded data can then be used

to assess the underground climatic conditions and determine the combined heat load of the

mine. This unit was capable of recording data at intervals specified by the user and had a

128 KB storage capacity (records up to 87,000 readings).

 55

Table 4.2. Comparison between different types of climatic monitoring systems

Configurations Hand-held monitoring instruments Continuous Real-time
monitoring systems monitoring
systems
Accuracy VISALA ±0.2 ˚C ±0.2 ˚C ±1 ˚C
(Temperature sensor)
Kestrel ±0.1 ˚C
Sensor VAISALA Platinum RTD Thermistor Loop fiber
Kestrel Thermistor
Storage and VISALA Up to 30 readings 128 Kb up to 87000 Real time
download capability readings – include monitoring
Kestrel Storage only software with MS
excel file format
Size and flexibility VAISALA Hand-held Small (107 mm x Dimensions of
74 mm x 22 mm) 390 mm x 344
Kestrel Hand-held
mm x 85 mm with
the length up to
20 km
Power supply VAISALA AA battery Built-in battery for 115 or 230 VAC,
10 years 50-60Hz; max
Kestrel AAA battery
300W
Application VAISALA Spot Continuous Real-time
measurement measurement, monitoring, fire
pressure survey, detection
Kestrel Spot dynamic modeling
measurement
Cost VAISALA Under 1000 $ Under 1000 $ Over 1000 $
Kestrel Under 500 $

Table 4.3. ACR smart-reader 4 multi-channel data logger specification

Smart reader plus 4 specifications
Temperature Temp. range: -40 ˚C to 70 ˚C
Accuracy: ±0.2 ˚C
Resolution: 0.07 ˚C
Pressure Pressure range: 0 to 200 kPa
absolute
Accuracy: ±0.5% at 25 ˚C
Resolution: 0.1 kPa
Relative Humidity RH range: 10% to 90%
Accuracy: up to 5% (measured at
room temperature)
 56

4.2.1. Advantages of Using Continuous Data Logger Type Monitoring Systems

1. The monitoring units are lightweight, small and can be installed at different locations

in underground mine workings without interfering with operations (Figure 4.1).

2. The monitoring units include built-in batteries and do not require any external power

source.

3. The monitoring units are low maintenance, and the calibration procedure is straight

forward.

4. Recording and downloading the data is simple and quick. Downloading the data on a

mobile computer can be done at the location that the unit is placed.

5. These units are inexpensive compared to the real-time monitoring systems and are

fairly accurate for common climatic and ventilation surveys.

6. The units can be placed at key locations that other monitoring equipment cannot be

placed. For example, the unit can be placed near the face of a production stope to

capture the change in temperature and humidity during any phase of the mining cycle.

7. The units can measure climatic parameters inside the auxiliary ducts. The external

probe is fairly small and can be inserted into the duct without significant damage to the

ducting system.
 57

Figure 4.1. The monitoring units can be installed at different locations without interfering with
development and production operations
4.2.2. Applications of Continuous Climatic Monitoring Systems

4.2.2.1 Climatic monitoring and climatic control

Climatic data measurements are usually used to evaluate the thermal condition of an

underground mine, to both identify and quantify the heat generated from main sources and

to pinpoint the optimum heat control method for the problem areas. As the temperature,

pressure and relative humidity fluctuate considerably during the day and night, continuous

monitoring of different parts of a mine will be critical to understand and control heat

problems in the mine accurately. A continuous monitoring system is required to identify

the heat sources underground, as there are transient heat exchange processes between the

ventilating air and surrounding environments. Figure 4.2 shows an example of temperature

trends as a result of heat generated by equipment during mucking. The measured climatic

data showed that it could be up to 24 hours for a development heading to reach equilibrium

with the surrounding environment (no activity temperature).

4.2.2.2. Auxiliary climatic control

Even if the real-time monitoring method has an advantage over the logging type monitoring

systems in primary ventilation systems, they cannot be used to assess the climate provided

by auxiliary ventilation systems (e.g. in the production stopes). This is because auxiliary
 58

ventilation systems are temporary and they are frequently extended and moved. Utilizing

real-time monitors would prove challenging as they are not easily accessible, they have a

greater chance of being damaged (particularly because of equipment movement and

blasting) and they are certainly not economical. These shortcomings are highly unfavorable

to use real-time monitoring systems to assess the climatic conditions where auxiliary

ventilation systems are employed. On the other hand, all the advantages of the data logger

type monitoring units make them very suitable for use in the development and production

workings. Figure 4.3 and 4.4 shows the monitoring layout in a development heading.

Figure 4.2. An example of dry-bulb temperature change during mucking and hauling operations

Figure 4.3. Typical layout of Data logger locations in a development heading

 59

Figure 4.4. Data loggers installed at different locations in auxiliary ventilation system with minimal
damage to the ventilation ducts
4.2.2.3. Barometry based pressure survey

Generally, two methods are used to determine barometric pressure differentials in

underground mines. The Roving method can be performed by one person and the use of a

surface barometer which records a stationary surface/atmospheric barometric pressure. The

Roving method assumes that the barometric pressure in the mine and on the surface

fluctuate concurrently. This limitation can be eliminated using the leapfrogging method

when a barometric pressure survey is conducted simultaneously at two varying locations

underground (Loomis, 2004).

Both methods can be performed using continuous monitoring methods described in this

paper. The most important advantage of using these types of monitoring systems is that

there will be no requirement to have a team of one or two persons as the monitoring units

continually log the data for the desired period of time. The second advantage of this method

is that the pressure survey can be done in a safe manner and at a relatively lower cost, as it

does not interfere with underground activities. With this method, the effect of any unusual

activity (e.g. an open ventilation door) can be identified during the pressure survey.
 60

4.2.2.4. Transient Heat Exchange Processes and Irregularities in Climatic Conditions

It is imperative that irregularities are incorporated into the measured data so that any

unusual activities and rapid changes can be taken into account in ventilation system design.

There are unknown sharp temperature fluctuations and data irregularities at different

locations of an underground mine (Figure 4.6). The temperature fluctuations can be due to

the release of gasses from the rib or back, oxidation, idling of equipment close to the unit,

groundwater, etc. The fluctuation of temperature and other environmental parameters

cannot be predicted using theoretical solutions and modeling. Dynamic heat exchange

processes between the rock and ventilated air, like when an auxiliary fan is turned on and

off, cannot be calculated using the standard climatic software. This information is critical

particularly in cases where the environmental parameters are close to their threshold limit

values (TLV). Continuous monitoring systems are the most suitable tools to identify and

quantify these occurrences in an underground mine.

Figure 4.5. Sharp temperature fluctuation caused by unknown activities in the ramp before the auxiliary fan

Temperature damping is caused by the heat capacity of the rock mass that stores and then

releases heat which then affects the temperature of the ventilating air. The way exterior air

temperatures and heat flows affect an interior environment is also referred to as the
 61

“thermal damping effect.” For example, at the top of the shaft during summertime, the

temperature on the surface fluctuates widely, from a high temperature of 33 ˚C during a

sunny midday to a low temperature of 19 ˚C in the middle of the night. However, the

bottom of the shaft will experience a much smaller temperature fluctuation. The shaft wall

acts as an energy reducing mechanism and reduces the amplitude of the temperature wave

(Danko, 2013).

During day time, the dry bulb temperature (Td) of the air in the intake shaft, heated by auto-

compression, develops higher values than the Virgin Rock Temperature (VRT) of the

surrounding rock at some locations. Consequently, sensible heat is transferred from the

intake air into the surrounding rock, thus cooling the air. At night, however, there is a

greater potential for the heat to flow from the surrounding rock formations into the

ventilating air, increasing the air temperature. We recognize this phenomenon as the

“thermal damping effect” (see Figure 4.6).

Time Lag
Damping effect

Damping effect Time lag

Figure 4.6. Thermal damping effect in an intake shaft

 62

4.2.3. Challenges in Using Logging Type Monitoring Systems

1. For extreme climatic situations, particularly when the relative humidity is more than

85% to 90%, these types of monitoring systems fail to record the climatic parameters

properly (see Figure 4.7). In particular, locations with high relative humidity (e.g.

exhaust shafts) can take up to several hours for the monitoring units to recover.

2. These units are typically not built for extreme environmental conditions such as those

in underground mines. Each must be cleaned on a regular basis (every two weeks) to

remove the dust and other contaminants from the units in order to obtain accurate

readings.

3. These units cannot be installed in hard to reach locations (e.g. close to booster fans) as

they need to be accessible for data downloading and cleaning on a regular basis.

4. It is recommended to test and validate the accuracy of the units periodically as they may

fail to record climatic data. In several circumstances, the units failed to record any data

for a period of one month.

5. The size of the units can be a challenge because they can be damaged by mining

equipment or mining operations (shotcrete, water seepage) without being noticed by the

mine workers.

6. The logged data should be compared with a more accurate handheld instrument as dust

and contaminants may cover the sensors and consequently can compromise the accuracy

of the units. Relative humidity readings should be specifically examined.

 63

7. The collected data must be verified with the operation schedules and mining cycles at

the underground mine. There are always enormous fluctuations that need be removed

from the data, particularly for thermal and management purposes.

8. The meaning of the vast amount of data is usually difficult to process and analyze.

9. The mine is never truly at steady state, and the measurements may be delayed such as

during rapid and hazardous changes. In these cases, real-time monitoring systems are

recommended.

Figure 4.7. Failure of the monitoring unit when relative humidity (RH) readings exceed 90%

4.3. Climatic Monitoring Plan using Continuous Climatic Monitoring

System

To assess the atmospheric and underground environmental conditions at one of our partner

mines in Nevada, multi-channel climatic monitoring units were installed along vertical and

horizontal airways from surface to the lowest production level. The climatic data collection

program focused on monitoring both primary and auxiliary ventilation systems in order to:

1) determine the heat load and temperature changes due to auto-compression and

geothermic gradient; 2) identify and quantify the damping effect (DE) and the thermal
 64

flywheel effect (TFE), particularly in the intake shaft; 3) gather adequate data for

development and calibration of steady state and dynamic ventilation-thermal (V-T-H)

models; 4) quantify the heat generated by the primary and auxiliary fans, mining equipment

and strata; 5) develop a best practice ventilation and climatic monitoring program for our

partner mines in Nevada.

During this project, twelve multi-channel data loggers were used. Several hand-held

instruments (e.g. VISALA, Kestrel, FLUKE, anemometer, barometer, etc.) were utilized

to examine the accuracy of the data loggers and perform ventilation and climatic spot

measurements throughout the mine. Equipment activities were also obtained from the mine

in electronic format, in which equipment locations and the type of work were indicated at

one-minute intervals. The activities were sorted by location and time so that they would

correspond to the climatic data obtained. This was used to find periods of time that

corresponded to the mining cycles. Table 2 demonstrates the monitoring program for the

primary and auxiliary ventilation systems at the mine.

4.4. Calculation of Major Heat Sources in Underground Mines – A Case

Study

Surface air sent down to the underground workings, through either natural or manmade

ventilation, will experience a compression. This means that although the volume of air

has been reduced, the amount of heat remains the same resulting in hotter air

(McPherson, 2009).

To calculate the heat added to the ventilating air, the steady flow energy equation gives

(McPherson, 2009) :
 65

∆𝐻 = 𝑔. ∆𝑍 + 𝛥𝑞 Eq. 4.1

where ΔH is the change of enthalpy (J/kg), g is gravitational acceleration (g= 9.81 m/s2),

ΔZ is the depth of the opening, and Δq is the heat added from surroundings (J/kg). The

change in enthalpy as a result of autocompression can then be calculated as follow

(McPherson, 2009):

∆𝐻 = 𝑔. ∆𝑍 Eq. 4.2

The temperature raise caused by autocompression is determined as (McPherson, 2009):

∆𝑇 = 0.0071(∆𝑧) − 2428.7 ∆𝑥 (℃) Eq. 4.3

where ΔT is the temperature raise (˚C) and Δx is the change of the moisture content

(kg/kg dry air). To calculate the temperature raise based on the climatic data, the vertical

shaft was modeled in Climsim. The same opening was modeled as a horizontal opening

in order to capture the temperature raise from the strata heat (Δq). The difference is the

temperature raise as a result of autocompression (see Table 4.5 as an example).

Table 4.2. Calculation of temperature raise caused by autocompression

Vertical opening ΔTd (˚C) Horizontal opening Difference
Location ΔTd (˚C)
Td Tw BP Td Tw BP ΔTd (˚C)
Top 22.71 10.48 84.116 22.71 10.48 84.116
4.22 -1.11 5.33
Bottom 26.93 13.08 89.136 21.6 10.4 83.65
Top 20.73 9.04 84.253 20.73 9.04 84.253
Bottom 25.02 11.73 89.317 4.29 19.69 8.97 83.783 -1.04 5.33
Top 20.03 8.73 84.323 20.03 8.73 84.323
Bottom 24.36 11.44 89.403 4.33 19.03 8.66 83.851 -1 5.33
Top 22.22 9.6 84.323 22.22 9.6 84.323
Bottom 26.42 12.25 89.366 4.2 21.09 9.52 83.855 -1.13 5.33
Top 28.99 11.95 84.323 28.99 11.95 84.323
Bottom 32.75 14.45 89.255 3.76 27.41 11.86 83.865 -1.58 5.34
 66

Calculating the heat load from mining equipment based on in-situ data can be conducted

with two main methods: 1. Equipment activity surveys at production areas and

throughout the mine site; 2. Mapping equipment activity based on the dispatch data. In

this study, dispatch equipment activity data was used to quantify the heat load coming

from equipment. Table 4.5 shows an example of equipment activity mapping at a

development.

Figure 4.8. Equipment activity data based on the dispatch data at a development heading

The advantage of this method is that the heat generated by each equipment can be

estimated at different time/location (see Table 4.6). The average temperature change by

mining equipment can also be estimated. Figure 4.9 shows an example of the average

temperature at the face and the return when there is an activity in the development.
 67

Figure 4.9. An example of equipment activity at the development and the average temperature change at
the face and the return

Table 4.3. Temperature changes for each equipment activity and the average changes during a 24 hours
period
Date Activity Td (˚C) Tw (˚C)
Bolting 1.38 -0.11
9/18/2015 Average Activity 1.23 -0.22
Bolting/Moving 5.34 0.37
Driller moving 0.11 -1.05
Mucking 4.80 1.53
Bolting/Moving 1.73 0.38
Powder truck -0.01 -0.57
Mucking 2.11 0.80
9/19/2015 Average Activity 1.96 0.47
Bolting 1.24 1.95
Powder truck 0.35 0.71
Mucking 4.02 -0.23
Bolting 0.15 -0.23
9/20/2015 Average Activity 2.04 0.82
Mucking 3.07 2.79
Mucking 3.22 2.79
9/21/2015 Average Activity 3.12 1.62
 68

Figure 4.10 and 4.11 show the average dry-bulb temperature raise during fourteen days of

data collection at the development face and the return. The heat flux can then be

calculated from using the conductivity and convention coefficient of the air for each

airway.

Figure 4.10. Dry-bulb temperature increase with equipment activity at the development

Figure 4.11. Dry-bulb temperature increase with equipment activity at the development

Heat emission from the strata depends on the type of rock, the exploitation method depth,

and geometry of the airways. However, the amount of heat transmitted decreases over time,

the working faces being where the greatest transmission takes place. The heat coming from

strata can be calculated using theoretical solutions (heat flux from conduction and

convection heat transfers). For accurate and detailed planning, a mine climatic simulation

package can be employed. Heat from strata can be obtained using empirical methods based
 69

on other similar mines. For example, Whillier (1981) exposed an equation method that

defines two expressions depending on the time since an airway was opened:

𝑞 = 3.35 𝐿 𝑘 0.854 (𝑉𝑅𝑇 − 𝑇𝑑.𝑎𝑣𝑔 ) Eq. 4.4

𝑞 = 6 𝑘 (𝐿 + (4 × 𝐷𝐹𝐴))(𝑉𝑅𝑇 − 𝑇𝑑.𝑎𝑣𝑔 ) Eq. 4.5

where q is the heat flow from strata (W), L is the length of the tunnel (m), k is the thermal

conductivity of the rock (W/m˚C), VRT is the virgin rock temperature (˚C), DFA is the

daily face advance (m), and Td.avg is the average dry-bulb temperature.

There are several other sources that add heat load to the ventilation system. Note that there

was no information about the influx of underground water and backfilling. Calculations

regarding the total heat load of the mine indicate that the contribution of this heat source is

negligible. Heat generated by backfilling equipment were considered in the equipment heat

load. The heat load profile of the mine site is shown in Figure 4.12 with the surface

temperature is 16.3 ˚C. A heat load profile was also develop for the surface air temperature

of 28.5 ˚C (Figure 4.13). The contribution of different major heat sources to the total heat

load of the mine is presented in Table 4.7. A comparison between the heat load profiles

shows that the heat exchanges in underground mine is dynamic. Therefore, the heat load

profile of the mine should also be at a dynamic state. Furthermore, the surface temperature

can drastically change the heat exchanges throughout the mine. Though often ignored, the

temperature of the surface air can have a significant impact on the air temperature

underground. The surface air temperature can influence the temperature of air flow in the
 70

atmosphere of underground openings during particular seasons of the year and depend on

the altitude of the mine.

Figure 4.12. Quantifying major heat sources in our partner mine, td (surface) = 16.32 ˚C

Figure 4.13. Quantifying major heat sources in our partner mine, td (surface) = 28.5 ˚C
 71

Table 4.4. Contribution of different major heat sources to the total heat load of the mine
Air Heat content 21.44 kJ/kg
Total Heat capacity 10376.40 kW
td (surface) = 16.32 ˚C td (surface) = 28.5 ˚C
Heat source Heat load (kW) Heat load (kW)
Auto-compression 3257.75 3257.75
Strata Heat 2651.2 1252.9
Equipment 4312.25 4312.25
Other Sources (Including
756.25 609.7
backfill)

4.5. Discussion

Though the chosen monitoring units hold many advantages, they are useless for data

collection without a well-designed monitoring program. Choosing the right unit for

measurements of the required parameters, identification of critical locations to be

monitored and the timing of monitoring are critical when these type of monitoring units

are used. For example, if the distance between two units in the primary ventilation system

is too large, there will be several occurrences that cannot be captured and the collected data

will be rendered useless. It is important to install the monitoring units at the top and bottom

of the intake shaft during each period of climatic and activity monitoring in order to have

a robust understanding of the intake climatic condition.

Calculation of the heat make up in an underground mine is important to establish the total

airflow requirement for metal/non-metal underground mines. The main objective of an

efficient underground ventilation system is to supply oxygen to workers, to remove and

dilute pollutants generated by mining processes (dust, heat, gasses) and to ultimately

provide a suitable thermal environment for workers and machinery. Mine intake air
 72

temperature gradually increases due to the depth and the length of air travel through

underground openings. The main cause of heat transfer to the ventilating air underground

is due to the increase of strata temperature with respect to depth, which is known as the

“geothermic gradient.” The geothermal flow of heat emanating from the core of the earth

can be much higher in regions of anomalous geothermal activity. Furthermore, with

increasing depth through a succession of various rock formations, the geothermal step,

which is the inverse of the geothermic gradient, can also vary according to the thermal

conductivity and diffusivity of the rock formations. Other sources of heat that can transfer

to the ventilating air includes air auto-compression, mining equipment (diesel, electrical),

explosive detonation, human metabolism and influx of thermal water.

To understand and model heat and humidity transport, all major heat sources in an

underground mine need to be identified and quantified. There can be a considerable

difference in the spectrum of the heat and mine power source distributions between

different mines due to many factors such as depth, mechanization, power sources,

geothermal activity and rock thermal properties (Kocsis & Hardcastle, 2010). Figure 4.14

shows an example of the heat load profiles in three mines in Canada, Australia, and

precious metal mine in Nevada. As shown in this figure the contribution of each heat load

changes from mine to mine. Understanding the major heat source that has the highest

contribution to the total heat load of the mine is also important to in order to select the

optimum heat control method. For example, in the case that heat generated by

autocompression is high, the design of the shaft should in a way that promote the heat

transfer to the surrounding environment. On the other hand, when heat coming from the

strata is high, localized cooling system can be applied to control the heat load in working
 73

areas. The main airways can also be isolated so that the heat transfer from the rock to the

ventilating air is minimized. Diesel equipment can be replaced with electrical equipment

in the case that heat generated by mining equipment is significant. Apart from the electrical

engines’’ higher energy efficiency, less consumption of diesel would mean a drop in

temperature and pollutants concentration.

Figure 4.14. Comparison of heat load profile in different regions; (a) Canada (Kocsis & Hardcastle, 2010);
(b) Australia (Brake, 2002), and USA
 74

Table 4.5. Summary of the monitoring program at the mine

Primary system (mine-wide) Auxiliary system (work areas) Intake shaft
Zone 1: At the top and bottom of the Location 1: A dead-end development heading At the top and bottom of the intake
intake and exhaust shafts with an auxiliary fan and exhaust shafts
Zone 2: From the bottom of the intake Location 2: A production area with multiple
shaft to the lowest production area production faces with a single fan
Locations
Zone 3: From the lowest production Location 3: A production area with
area to the bottom of the exhaust shaft single/multiple production faces with a single
or multiple fans
1. To quantify the heat load from auto- 1. To quantify the heat load from equipment 1. To identify and quantify the
compression, strata heat, groundwater associated with backfilling, blasting and thermal damping effect
and geothermal gradient auxiliary equipment 2. To understand the transient heat
Purpose
2. Develop and calibrate a dynamic 2. To optimize auxiliary ventilation systems to exchange processes between the
ventilation-thermal-humidity (V-T-H) mitigate heat transfer to the mine air mine air and the surrounding
model environment
Twelve ACR units were installed ACR units were installed at top and bottom of ACR units were installed at top and
throughout the primary systems in the the shaft to capture the intake air quality bottom of the shaft to record climatic
direction of airflow to record climatic ACR units installed before/after the auxiliary data at one-minute intervals for a
data at one-minute intervals for two fan, inside/outside the duct, near the face and month
weeks along the return drift to record climatic data at Record any rain, snow, outside
Monitoring Spot measurements for one-minute intervals for two weeks temperature, barometric pressure and
Plan ventilation/climatic parameters and unusual activities that affect the
Spot measurements for ventilation/climatic
surface rock temperature were parameters and surface rock temperature were intake air temperature
performed to validate the continuous performed to validate the continuous
measurements measurements
Ventilation surveys were performed to Ventilation surveys to measure air volumes
measure air volumes and the barometric and barometric pressures at the locations of
pressure at the locations of ACRs the ACRs
 75

Chapter 5 - Improving the climatic conditions in development

and production workings of hot underground mines by re-
designing the auxiliary ventilation system - Case study # 1

5.1. Skin temperature as an index for evaluation of mine climatic

condition

The skin, by means of function, is the body’s thermostat. The body’s heat exchange

mechanism involves sensible heat transfer at the skin surface (via convection and

radiation), latent heat transfer (via moisture evaporating and diffusing through the skin),

and through sweat evaporation on the skin surface (Arens & Zhang, 2006). The human skin

regulates the body temperature by means of the actions of blood circulation through the

vessels and by the process of sweating and evaporation. If the body is subjected to heat

waves in hot climates, the mechanism of sweating is activated due to increased blood flow

to the vessels. This process cools the body off as the sweat evaporates from the skin. The

work of Bulcao et al. (2000) revealed the significance of skin temperature in evaluating

thermal comfort in humans. The human body controls the skin temperature to balance the

heat gain and heat loss. This makes the use of skin temperature a considerable potential as

an index to determine thermal sensation and comfort. Thermal equilibrium in the human

body is achieved through a balance between metabolic heat production and heat loss from

the body. Heat storage in the body will result in an increase in the average body

temperature, which is a weighted average of the core temperature and mean skin

temperature (Mehnert , et al., 2000).

 76

5.1.1. Skin temperature as a heat stress index

Skin temperature depends on the air temperature and the time spent in that environment.

Such climate factors such as airflow velocity and humidity cause changes in skin

temperature. The normal temperature of the human skin is about 33°C. The flow of energy

to and from the skin determines our sense of hot and cold. Heat flows from higher to lower

temperature, so the human skin will not drop below that of surrounding air, regardless of

the airflow. If a person was to be in a hot environment and his/her skin temperature was

cooler than the air, his/her skin temperature would rise. The opposite would happen in a

cold room and warm skin temperature. The person's temperature would decrease. Humans

fight variations in air temperature by becoming warm or cold. When warm, they sweat.

When cold, they get chill (Elert, 2015).

Among the environmental parameters that determines thermal comfort, mostly air

temperature, humidity, radiation and airflow velocity are often measured and combined

into indices which will indicate, whether the climatic conditions at any time will produce

satisfaction for its occupants (Roghanchi et al 2015). In extreme hot climates all parameters

are important, nonetheless only temperature and humidity have been combined into most

commonly used indices (Driscoll, 1992). Also, these indices conspicuously avoid

including the physiological parameters of comfort in their prediction. The problem in

combining these parameters and expressing them as a single reliable indicator of comfort

is the reason for dangerous omissions. Another problem is related to the use of indices

which, seemingly integrate these elements together, but often give an indicator very close

to the actual ambient air temperature (Driscoll, 1992), thereby introducing an element of

erroneous impression that the air temperature can assess thermal comfort.
 77

The inadequacies discussed above are avoided by using rational indices, of which, the skin

temperature can be significant in playing the role of an index or a physiological input for

comfort models. These indices often involve the six generally accepted comfort parameters

in predicting thermal safety in extreme hot climates (Roghanchi et al 2015).

5.1.2. Mean skin temperature calculation

Having established the significant role of skin temperature for comfort assessment in warm

environments, it is important to define a method to accurately predict its numerical value.

Several heat stress indices use either a fixed mean skin temperature or a prediction model,

which incorporates some or all physical factors of the thermal environment as well as the

clothing insulation and the metabolic rate (Kocsis & Hardcastle, 2010). A fixed value is

easy to use, however, in conditions with dynamic exposure to heat, this can result in over-

estimations or under-estimations resulting in errors in the heat balance analysis (Sunkpal,

2015).

Direct measurement of skin temperature is often not practically feasible (Mairiaux et al.,

1987). A lot of the methods available for predicting skin temperature have inherent

limitations. Some are developed for resting subjects, while others are formulated based on

insufficient data, or lack of comprehensiveness. For underground mining purposes, a

predictor must involve a working subject and be able to predict with accuracy and precision

over a wide range of environmental conditions (Mairiaux et al., 1987).

The estimation of mean skin temperature can be achieved using the equation 5.1 proposed

by Mairiaux et al. (1987) as follows:

𝑡𝑠𝑘𝑖𝑛 = 30 + 0.138 𝑡𝑎 + 0.254 𝑃𝑎 - 0.57 𝑉𝑎 + 0.0128 M - 0.553 Rcl (°C) Eq. 5.1
 78

There appears to be no compromise among comfort/environmental researchers regarding

the effect of the metabolic rate on the skin temperature. Fanger’s thermal comfort model

was developed based on the proposition that skin temperature decreases with increasing

metabolic rate (Fanger, 1970). Some researchers reported a direct relation trend in results

between skin temperature and activity rates (Adams, 1977). Others found the metabolic

rate to have no effect on the skin temperature (Missenard, 1973). From the equation

adopted for this study, it is apparent that the effect of the metabolic rate on the mean skin

temperature, though minor compared to the contributions of the other comfort parameters,

cannot be ignored.

5.2. Sensitivity Analysis of the Effect of Airflow Velocity on Thermal

Comfort in Underground Mines

Ambient airflow velocity is acknowledged as one of the critical parameters to improve the

thermal comfort of the mine workers, and it has been considered in all known comfort

standards. Usually, minimum and maximum airflow velocity limits are determined and

mandated in underground mines where mine personnel work and travel. To dilute most

pollutants, a common minimum airflow velocity for airways where personnel work and

travel is 0.3 m/s (MacPherson, 2009). However, in production workings, airflow velocities

usually vary from 1 m/s to 3 m/s. The recommended maximum airflow velocity in the

production areas is 4 m/s. Above airflow velocity of 4 m/s, significant discomfort can be

experienced by the underground workers because of the impact of large dust particulars

that are carried by the airflow (Houghton & Yaglou, 1923; Nevins, 1971; Fanger &

Pedersen, 1977; McIntyre, 1979; Christensen et al., 1984; Fanger & Christensen, 1986;

Berglund & Fobelets, 1987; Zhou, 1999; Toftum, 2002; Griefahn et al.,1997). Particularly
 79

in underground metal and non-metal mines, where high airflow velocity may generate dust

dispersion, which causes serious health hazards (Kurnia et al., 2014; Donoghoue, 2004;

MacPherson, 2009; Hartman et al., 2012).

For decades air movement has been used as a strategy in hot and humid environments by

mine ventilation and comfort engineers to increase the rate of the cooling of the occupants.

For example, Humphreys (1970) developed an empirical equation to estimate the relative

comfort temperature based on constant airflow velocity of 0.1 m/s and above. Mclntyre

(1979) found 28 °C to be the highest comfortable temperature at 1.4 m/s for male occupants

and 1 m/s for female occupants. Rohles et al., (1983) found pleasant levels beyond what

had been previously considered reasonable (up to 1 m/s at 29.5 °C). Spain (1984) found

that an airflow velocity of 0.25 m/s provided comfort for air temperatures up to 27.8 °C,

while 1 m/s provided comfort up to 29.4 °C. Holm and Engelbrecht (2005) uphold that air

movement at temperatures below 37 °C cools the body while it begins to heat it at

temperatures above 37 °C. Candido et al., (2010) found that the minimally acceptable

airflow velocity for Brazil’s hot and humid climatic zone needs to be at least 0.4 m/s for

26 °C, reaching 0.9 m/s for operative temperatures up to 30 °C. As observed by Fountain

and Arens (1993), the focus of most mine ventilation practitioners is often to deliver the

required air volumes to the production workings. This is often done to the disadvantage of

achieving the required airflow velocity for thermal comfort. However, apart from air

quality, what is also desired at the work-face by miners is comfort, safety, and satisfaction

with their working environment.

A method was developed and adopted in the form of a “comfort model” to predict the

optimum airflow velocity required to maintain heat comfort for the underground workforce
 80

at different activity levels (e.g. metabolic rates). A detailed calculations and model

development can be found in Roghanhci et al., (2017). This study analyzed the effect of air

velocity with air temperature on the thermal comfort of miners. The technique included the

use of a two stress criteria of maximum skin wetness and maximum sweat rate, and the

strain criteria of maximum dehydration. In this study, airflow velocities of 1 m/s and 2 m/s,

which will guarantee thermal comfort, were determined by means of climatic modeling

and simulation exercises. Based on the pattern of the results, the authors recommend an

optimal airflow velocity of 1.5 m/s throughout production workings.

5.3. Climatic data collection layout

The mine being studied is located in central/western Nevada. The existing primary

ventilation system is of exhaust type, with a booster fan located at the bottom of the

ventilation shaft. The auxiliary ventilation systems are designed based on a “forcing” type

setup, with the auxiliary fans sized to deliver the required fresh air to the face.

Fresh air is usually picked up from the ramp and delivered to the face along a flexible fabric

duct under the assistance of a 100 hp auxiliary fan. The development heading is normally

advanced with conventional drilling and blasting. Broken rock is removed using 3 and 6

yard3 LHDs and 20 and 30 ton haul trucks. During the mine climate and equipment activity

monitoring program, the 6 yard3 LHDs and the 30-ton haul trucks were used.

The locations for the monitoring units were selected based on critical model development

needs. A dead-end development heading in an underground mine ventilated by means of a

“forcing” type auxiliary system was selected for our climatic study. The ACR monitoring

units were installed as follows: (1) before the auxiliary duct in the main airway, (2) after
 81

the auxiliary fan inside the fabric duct, (3) at the end of the duct, (4) at the working face,

(5) along the drift in the return airway, and (6) at the main return.

An ACR monitoring unit was placed at each of these locations and they were set to record

climatic parameters at one-minute interval. The unit in the main airway was used to

establish an input baseline of temperature, pressure, and relative humidity. The unit after

the auxiliary fan located inside the auxiliary duct was used to determine the heat added by

the fan. The unit at the end of the duct showed the conditions of the fresh air before being

delivered to the working face, so that the changes that occurred due to equipment activity

and heat transferred to the mine air from the broken ore/rock could be determined. The

ACR unit at the working face was removed during blasting and re-installed in the

advancing heading to capture both strata heat and activity at the face. This unit was

approximately 15 m away from the working face. The unit placed along the drift in the

return air captured the combined heat and moisture added at the working face, as well as

from passing equipment. The final unit in the main return captured the combined heat and

moisture added to the return air throughout the system being modelled.

5.3.1 Climatic model development

A climatic model was developed to simulate the heat loads and the climatic conditions at

the face and along the return drifts. The model was developed based on the intake

ventilation and climatic parameters, the heat load from the auxiliary fans along the duct,

and throughout the development. Various heat load zones were identified within the

auxiliary ducting system and throughout the development heading. The climatic model for

the current design is categorized into six zones to simulate the system, as follows:

Zone 1: auxiliary duct before fan

 82

Zone 2: auxiliary duct with fan

Zone 3: auxiliary duct from fan to end of the duct

Zone 4: end of the duct to the face

Zone 5: development face to end of the duct (return)

Zone 6: end of the duct to end of return airway

In the current auxiliary ventilation system, air is forced to the development face by means

of a 100 hp auxiliary fan through a flexible fabric duct. Approximately 23 m3/s of fresh air

with an average dry-bulb temperatures (Td) of 32.17 ˚C and wet-bulb temperature (Tw) of

28.52 ˚C passes through the auxiliary duct. The dry-bulb temperature of the air in the duct

after the auxiliary fan reaches values from 34.15 ˚C to 36.89 ˚C. When there is no

equipment activity, hot air losses heat to the surrounding rock. Table 5.1 shows the climatic

parameters of the mine throughout the development, which were than used for model

development and simulation purposes.

Table 5.1. Measured data at the development

Dry-bulb Wet-bulb Barometric Pressure
ACR Location
Temperature (˚C) Temperature (˚C) (kPa)
Auxiliary duct before
32.17 28.52 90.762
the fan
Auxiliary duct after the
35.11 -- 92.769
fan
Approx. 15 m away
33.99 33.99 90.528
from the face
At the development
33.92 29.50 90.597
return

The climatic model was calibrated against the collected data. Table 5.2 shows the results

from the climatic model runs compared to measured data. As shown in Table 5.2, the dry-

bulb and wet-bulb temperatures at the interest points are in good agreement with the
 83

collected data from the mine. However, the predicted wet-bulb temperature is quite lower

compared to the measured values at the development face. The ACR unit at the face was

unable to accurately record all variations in relative humidity during the mining cycles, as

the unit recorded 100% relative humidity for values above 90% humidity. For such

situations the wet-bulb temperature generated from model runs were compared to the wet-

bulb temperature values that were measured manually. Figure 5.1 shows an example of

dry-bulb temperature and relative humidity recorded by the ACR unit at the face.

Figure 5.1. An example of recorded relative humidity at the face. Relative humidity stays at 100% for
approximately 9 hrs.

Table 5.2. Comparison between measured data and climatic model results
Location Dry-bulb Temperature (˚C) Wet-bulb Temperature (˚C)
Measurement Climatic Measurement Climatic
model model
Auxiliary duct before the fan 32.17 32.17 28.52 28.52
Auxiliary duct after the fan 35.11 35.83 -- 29.55
App. 15 m away from the face 33.99 34.69 33.99 29.41
At the development return 33.92 34.37 29.50 29.39

Different scenarios were simulated to identify and develop an improved auxiliary

ventilation system where work can be performed for various activity levels. The wet-bulb

temperature changes were plotted to illustrate the effect of various re-design strategies for

auxiliary ventilation system. Maximum skin temperatures at face and along the return
 84

airway were also compared with the maximum allowable skin temperature for different

metabolic rates.

5.3.2. Case study 1 - Auxiliary ventilation system with no equipment activity

In the first case scenario, no active equipment was operating in the development area. This

will be a phase of the mining cycle where geological surveys or borehole mapping is

conducted at the face. Based on the equipment activity data, more than 40% of the time of

monitoring the area was inactive. The results of heat modeling show that work at the face

can be performed at low to moderate levels of metabolic rate (M<300 W/m2). Furthermore,

the working area is not safe for higher levels of metabolic rate (M>300 W/m2). In order to

maintain a safe working area, different scenarios were considered and examined which

looked at re-designing the auxiliary ventilation system at this location. These scenarios

included:

1. Use of a “forcing” system with:

a) Increasing airflow velocity at the face from 0.5 m/s to 1 m/s

b) Increasing airflow velocity at the face from 0.5 m/s to 1.5 m/s

2. Use of an “exhausting” system with:

a) Current condition assuming that the airflow velocity at the face is 0.5 m/s

b) Increasing the airflow velocity at the face from 0.5 m/s to 1.5 m/s

Climatic simulations showed that changing the auxiliary ventilation system from a

“forcing” setup to an “exhausting” setup doesn’t significantly affect heat removal at the

face. This can be explained by considering the heat exchange between the ventilated air

and surrounding rock. With a “forcing” auxiliary ventilation system, the heat from high air
 85

temperatures goes into the surrounding rock, while with and “exhausting” setup heat is

transferred to the ventilating air as a result of lower air temperatures than the surrounding

rock temperature. Furthermore, the results generated through climatic simulations and

presented in Table 5.3 demonstrate that increasing the airflow velocity in a “forcing” setup

(e.g. scenario 1-b) is sufficient to mitigate the heat load from the dead-end development

for metabolic rates ranging from 200 W/m2 to 350 W/m2. Figure 5.2 and Figure 5.3

illustrate the effects of re-designing the auxiliary ventilation system based on the wet-bulb

temperature throughout the development heading.

Table 5.3. Comparison between the skin temperature limit and maximum skin temperatures
Auxiliary system Metabolic rate Skin temperature Maximum skin temperature (˚C)
(w/m2) limit Face Return
(˚C)
Current ventilation 200 34.98 33.34 33.24
system 250 34.38 34.12 33.92
300 33.52 34.10 34.64
350 32.29 34.88 35.53
1 m/s air velocity at 200 34.98 32.73 32.69
the face 250 34.38 33.25 33.21
300 33.52 33.78 33.76
350 32.29 34.46 34.40
1.5 m/s air velocity at 200 34.98 30.88 30.67
the face 250 34.38 31.50 31.25
300 33.52 32.11 31.82
350 32.29 32.25 31.98
200 34.98 33.05 33.09
Exhaust system 250 34.38 33.60 33.62
300 33.52 34.39 34.42
350 32.29 35.16 35.19
Exhaust system with 200 34.98 31.98 31.99
1.5 m/s velocity at the 250 34.38 32.62 32.65
face 300 33.52 33.10 33.11
350 32.29 33.51 33.53
 86

Figure 5.2. The effect of air velocity on the wet-bulb temperature for forcing auxiliary systems

Figure 5.3. The effect of air velocity on the wet-bulb temperature for exhausting auxiliary systems

5.3.3. Case study 2 - Auxiliary ventilation system with an active drilling equipment

For climatic modeling purposes, a 75 kW CAT electric Jumbo Drill was considered to be

operating at 5 m from the development face. The climatic model was calibrated against the

collected climatic data. The results generated through climatic simulations showed that

with the current auxiliary ventilation system, the underground climatic condition will only

allow low activity levels with metabolic rates less than 250 W/m2. Different scenarios were

examined to improve the efficiency of the auxiliary ventilation system in order to mitigate
 87

the heat load when the Jumbo Drill is active at the face. These scenarios included the use

of a “forcing” system with:

a) Increasing the airflow velocity at the face from 0.5 m/s to 1 m/s

b) Increasing airflow velocity at the face from 0.5 m/s to 1.5 m/s

c) Placing a 200 kW spot cooling system at approximately 15 meters away from the

face with 1.5 m/s airflow velocity

d) Placing a 250 kW spot cooling system at approximately 15 meters away from the

face with 1.5 m/s airflow velocity

Figure 5.4 shows the changes in wet-bulb temperature for the airflow delivery scenarios

mentioned above. As shown in Table 4, for high activity rates (M>300 W/m2), a spot

cooling system is required to remove the heat load at the face. To maintain a safe working

area throughout the development heading, a 250 kW spot cooling system is required.

Climatic simulations show that a cooling system is needed when the temperature of the

temperature of the fresh air is more than the comfort limit temperature (t w=28 ˚C). It can

be assumed that same ventilation system delivers sufficient air volumes when the bolter is

active at the face.

 88

Figure 5.4. Wet bulb temperature changes based on different scenarios when the drill is active

4.3.3. Case study 3: Auxiliary ventilation system with an active LHD and haul
truck:
LHDs and haulage trucks produce the largest amount heat in dead-end development
headings. At this mine, 3 to 6 yard3 LHDs are usually utilized for moving fragmented rock
and ore along the development headings and production areas. LHDs are also used to move
the fragmented ore from the draw-points to the ore/rock pass if the hauling distance is
appropriate. For longer distances (when the fragmented ore/rock needs to be taken to the
ore/rock pass at a significant distance from the draw-pint), haulage trucks are used. Figure
5.5 shows the change in dry-bulb temperature (Td) at the development face and at the
development return.
Table 5.4. Comparison between allowed skin temperature limits and maximum skin temperatures for
drilling operations
Auxiliary system Metabolic rate Skin temperature Maximum skin temperature
(w/m2) limit (˚C) (˚C)
Face Return
Current ventilation 200 34.98 33.37 33.72
system 250 34.38 34.83 34.44
300 33.52 35.60 35.15
350 32.29 36.34 35.84
1.5 m/s air velocity at 200 34.98 30.90 31.82
the face 250 34.38 31.50 32.40
300 33.52 32.10 32.88
350 32.29 32.67 33.31
200 kW with 1.5 m/s 200 34.98 29.51 31.1
air velocity at the face 250 34.38 30.21 31.41
300 33.52 31.69 32.00
350 32.29 31.54 32.56
250 kW with 1.5 m/s 200 34.98 29.26 30.58
air velocity at the face 250 34.38 29.96 31.19
300 33.52 30.65 31.78
350 32.29 31.30 32.28
 89

Figure 5.5. Example of dry-bulb temperature variation during mucking and haulage activities

For modeling purposes, a 6 yard3 LHD is considered to be operating at 5 m away from the

face (zone 4). A 30-ton haul truck is simulated as a linear heat source along the

development heading (zone 6). This simulation does not take into account the time that is

needed for the air to travel from a point to another point and the temperature changes

generated by the haul truck when idling of waiting to be loaded by the LHD. However,

comparisons between model simulation results and measured ventilation and climatic

parameters show relatively good agreements. The results generated through model

simulations (see Table 5.6) indicate that the current ventilation system cannot deliver

sufficient air volumes to the face of the dead-end development heading for even low

activity levels. Figure 5.6 illustrates the effects of re-designing the auxiliary ventilation

system based on the wet-bulb temperature throughout the development.

 90

Figure 5.6. Wet-bulb temperature changes based on different scenarios for mucking and hauling

Table 5.5. Comparison between allowed skin temperature limits and maximum skin temperatures during
mucking
Auxiliary system Metabolic rate Skin temperature Maximum skin temperature (˚C)
(w/m2) limit (˚C) Face Return
Current ventilation 200 34.98 35.91 35.94
system 250 34.38 36.65 36.61
300 33.52 37.38 37.28
350 32.29 37.94 37.80
200 kW with 1.5 200 34.98 30.06 30.62
m/s air velocity at 250 34.38 30.72 31.23
the face 300 33.52 31.37 31.82
350 32.29 32.58 33.39
250 kW with 1.5 200 34.98 29.83 30.41
m/s air velocity at 250 34.38 30.50 31.01
the face 300 33.52 31.16 31.61
350 32.29 31.79 32.18

5.4. Conclusions

This case study aimed to evaluate heat load and its distribution in a dead-end development

heading at one of our partner mine in Nevada. Climatic monitoring units were installed at

the entrance of a development heading, inside the auxiliary ducting system, at the

development face and along the return drift to measure and record the dry-bulb

temperature, relative humidity and barometric pressure. Numerical models for three case

studies were developed and calibrated against the collected data to evaluate the heat load

in the development heading. Comparison between maximum skin temperatures and

allowable skin temperatures indicate that a 0.5 m/s airflow velocity at the face does not
 91

deliver sufficient fresh air in order to mitigate the heat load at the face and maintain

adequate climatic conditions during the mining cycles. Furthermore, the results show that

spot cooling systems may be required if the mine workers are performing heavy work at

high metabolic rates. Climatic simulation showed that re-designing the auxiliary

ventilation system from a “forcing” arrangement to an “exhausting” arrangement would

not reduce the dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures at the face of development headings,

even when there is no activity.

 92

Chapter 6 - Improving the climatic conditions in development

and production workings of hot underground mines by re-
designing the auxiliary ventilation system - Case study # 2

6.1. Auxiliary Ventilation Systems in Underground Metal Mines

Auxiliary ventilation systems are used to supply fresh air to the working areas and

development headings. In metal mines, the auxiliary system includes auxiliary fan(s) and

a ducting system. The auxiliary system should not have any impact on the primary

ventilation system and the distribution of airflows throughout the main ventilation network.

The choice between forcing or exhausting systems depends on the pollutants at the face

such as dust, gasses and heat.

6.1.1. Forcing auxiliary ventilation system

Forcing auxiliary ventilation systems, also known as pushing systems, deliver fresh air to

the face of production headings without intake air contamination from external sources.

Use of forcing ventilation systems also provides cooler air to the immediate face

(Carpenter et al., 2015). Air leakage from the duct is not completely wasted because it aids

in reducing the contamination along the return airways. Another advantage of a forcing

system is that flexible ducting can be used due to positive pressure along the ducting

system. The main disadvantage of using forcing auxiliary ventilation systems is that

pollutants added to the air at the face will affect the entire length of the drift as the return

air passes back along it. Furthermore, high velocity air flow at the face may create dust

control problems.
 93

6.1.2. Exhausting auxiliary ventilation system

The main advantage of using exhausting ventilation systems, also known as pulling

systems, is that the pollutants, blasting gases and dust within the immediate vicinity of the

face can be immediately drawn into the duct while allowing fresh air to flow through the

length of the drift. The contaminated air routes will extend from the face to the ducting

system and will not affect the return airways. Dust filters can also be used to capture dust

from the contaminated air before exiting the auxiliary duct. The main disadvantage of

exhausting auxiliary ventilation systems is that the end of the duct needs to be maintained

close to the face in order to avoid uncontrolled recirculation at the face. Another

disadvantage is that the fresh air traveling through the heading to the face can draw heat

from the surrounding rock formations and other sources. Consequently, the intake air at

the face will be likely hotter compared to forcing auxiliary ventilation systems. In addition,

exhausting ventilation systems require rigid, non-collapsible ducts. This means higher

capital costs in the short term.

6.2. Assessment of the climatic conditions along the production headings

The mine being studied is located in Northern Nevada. The current primary ventilation

system is an exhaust type system with a booster fan located at the bottom of the exhaust

shaft. The auxiliary ventilation consists of forcing type systems with auxiliary fans ranging

from 50 to 150 hp as a function of ducting length and air volume requirements.

A typical auxiliary system consists of fresh air being drawn from the ramp and delivered

to the face through flexible fabric ducts under the assistance of a 100 hp auxiliary fans. The

production headings are normally advanced with conventional drilling and blasting.

Broken rock is removed using 3 and 6 cubic yards LHDs and 20 and 30-ton haul trucks.
 94

During the climatic and equipment activity monitoring program the 6 cubic yard LHD and

the 30-ton haul truck were used.

The locations where the ACR monitoring units were installed were as follows: on the rib

of the ramp or access drift before the auxiliary fan, inside the duct after the auxiliary fan,

at the working face, along the heading to capture the climatic parameters of the return air

and at the combined return drift in case of multiple production faces. A monitoring unit

was placed at each of these locations and each were set to record the climatic parameters

every minute. The unit installed in the main airway was used to establish an input baseline

of temperature, pressure and relative humidity. The unit installed after the fan in the

auxiliary duct was used to establish the heat added by the fan. The unit at the working face

was removed during blasting and re-installed in the advancing heading to capture both

strata heat and activity at the face. This unit was installed approximately 15 m away from

the working face. The units placed along the drift in the return air captured the combined

heat and moisture added at the working faces, as well as by the passing equipment. The

final unit in the main return gave the total moisture and heat added to the system being

modelled.

A climatic model was developed to simulate the individual heat loads and the climatic

conditions at the production faces using VentsimTM software. The model was developed

based on the intake airflow conditions, the heat load throughout the auxiliary ducting

system and along the production faces. In the current auxiliary ventilation system, air is

delivered to the production headings using a 100 hp auxiliary fan through a flexible fabric

duct. Approximately 32 m3/s of intake air with an average dry-bulb temperatures (Td) of

29.5 ˚C and wet-bulb temperature (Tw) of 25.6 ˚C passes through the auxiliary duct. Table
 95

1 shows the characteristics of the intake air throughout the production area used for climatic

simulation purposes.

Table 6.1. Climatic data at the production area when there is no equipment activity (median)
Locations V (m/s) Td (˚C) Tw (˚C) BP
(kPa)
Before the auxiliary fan at the main airway 29.5 25.6 91.010
After the auxiliary fan inside the duct 2.15 33.8 - -
APH # 1 0.3 31.69 28.51 90.697
APH # 2 0.2 31.29 31.29 90.941
APH # 3 0 31.42 26.1 91.045
Main Return 0.5 32.56 26.78 90.804

The climatic model was calibrated against the collected data (Table 6.2). As shown in the

Table 2, dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures at the interest points support the collected

data from the mine. However, the predicted wet-bulb temperatures are quite lower

compared to the measured wet-bulb temperatures at the development face. The ACR unit

at the face was not able to record the correct relative humidity since the humidity at this

location exceeded the unit’s capability. The ACR unit recorded 100% for humidity above

85%-90%. Figure 6.1 shows an example of the recorded data by the ACR unit at the

production face.

Figure 6.2 shows the contribution of main heat sources in the production area. The total

heat added to the system is approximately 82.3 kW in which the auxiliary fan has the

highest contribution to the total heat load of the system. Note that there was no information

about the influx of underground water. Calculations regarding the total heat load of the

mine indicate that the contribution of this heat source is negligible.

 96

Table 6.2. Simulation results of climatic parameters from the calibrated Ventsim model
Locations V (m/s) Td (˚C) Tw (˚C) BP (kPa)
Before the auxiliary fan at the main airway 2.2 29.4 25.6 91.0
After the auxiliary fan inside the duct -- 32.9 26.2 92.1
APH # 1 0.3 31.3 26.1 90.9
APH # 2 0.2 31.3 26.0 90.9
APH # 3 0.1 31.3 26.1 91.0
Main Return 0.6 31.3 26.1 90.9

Figure 6.1. An example of measured relative humidity values at the face. Relative humidity stays at 100%
for approximately 9 hours

Figure 6.2. . Heat load profile in the production area when there is no activity (total heat load of 82.3 kW)
 97

6.3. Modeling Results

Several other pertinent scenarios have been studied in order to develop optimized auxiliary

ventilation systems at this location of the mine. The scenarios included different mining

operations as well as no activity time frames (geological surveys or borehole mapping),

drilling operations (75 kW CAT electrical jumbo drill) and mucking operations (3 cubic

yards LHD and 30 ton haulage truck). For all scenarios, wet-bulb temperature and WBGT

were recorded and compared when forcing or exhausting systems are employed.

Furthermore, spot cooling systems were placed at different locations in production

headings in order to decrease the temperatures in the immediate areas of the production

faces. For each scenario it was assumed that a notable concentration of arsenic was present

at the active heading.

For example, it was assumed that a 3 yard3 LHD is active at the APH #2 production

heading. Considerations were also given to the fact that arsenic concentrations may be

present at the APH # 2 face. Different cases were simulated to examine both forcing and

exhausting auxiliary ventilation systems to determine the optimum auxiliary ventilation

arrangement where work can be comfortably performed. Table 6.3 shows the results of the

simulations for both forcing and exhausting systems. For each scenario, environmental and

climatic parameters were recorded at each face of a production working and at the returns.

The results of the climatic simulations demonstrate that employing an exhausting auxiliary

ventilation system is advantageous in order to decrease the air temperature in the working

areas and the return airways. When a forcing system is used, the heat generated by the

auxiliary fan(s) affects the whole production area and the return airways. Furthermore, the

energy added by a larger auxiliary fan (150 hp) increases the air temperature at the
 98

immediate face which results in hotter air compared to an exhausting system. Use of

multiple intake fans (150 hp & 50 hp) decreases the heat load at the face significantly.

However, a comparison between this scenario and a single 150 hp exhausting system

reveals that exhausting system delivers the same atmospheric condition. Therefore, use of

an exhausting system may be more economical.

Another advantage of using an exhausting system is that spot cooling systems can be placed

at locations relatively far from the working face without interfering with the work cycles.

When a forcing system is used, spot cooling system must be placed either in the intake

airways before the auxiliary fan or close to the immediate face of the dead-end heading or

production face. The problem with placing a spot cooling system before the auxiliary fan

is that the cooled intake air will draw an increased amount of heat from the surrounding

rock formations and will be heated by the auxiliary fan. Spot cooling system near the face

of a production working will interfere with the mining cycle and may not be economically

feasible.

The use of exhausting auxiliary ventilation systems is definitely beneficial if a contaminant

such as arsenic dust is present at the immediate face. Table 6.4 shows the results of various

auxiliary ventilation simulation scenarios where 100 units of arsenic dust concentrations

were present at the face. Dynamic simulations of contaminant dilution demonstrate that

although the initial concentration of arsenic dust might increase at the stope and along the

main return, the reduction and clearance time of the contaminant is faster at higher air

volumes.
 99

Table 6.3. Results of different simulation scenarios using Ventsim Model

Location V Q Td Tw(˚C) WBGT V Q Td Tw(˚C) WBGT
(m/s) (m3/s) (˚C) (˚C) (m/s) (m3/s) (˚C) (˚C)
Pushing Auxiliary System Exhausting Auxiliary System
75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s) – No activity 75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s) – No activity
APH 1 0.3 15.1 30.7 25.9 27.6 0.3 15.2 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2 0.2 7.9 32.5 26.6 29.2 0.2 8 32.9 26.9 28.7
APH 3 0.1 5.7 30.6 26 27.6 0.1 5.7 29.8 25.9 27
Return 0.4 14.1 33.9 27.1 29.1 0.3 14.2 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2/3
Return 0.7 30.6 32.1 26.5 28.3 0.7 30.4 29.4 25.7 26.8
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s)
APH 1 0.4 15.1 32.3 28.1 27.6 0.4 19.8 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2 0.3 7.9 33.5 29.4 29.2 0.2 10 32.1 26.7 28.3
APH 3 0.2 5.7 32.3 28.1 27.6 0.2 7.2 29.7 25.8 27
Return 0.5 14.1 34.3 29.2 29.1 0.4 17.8 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2/3
Return 0.9 30.6 33 28.6 28.3 0.9 38.5 29.4 25.7 26.8
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) and 50 hp 75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s) – Block APH # 1
auxiliary fan (28 m3/s) before APH 2 intake and APH # 3 ducting system
APH 1 0.3 11.2 31.9 26.2 27.9 - - - - -
APH 2 0.3 15.7 33.9 26.8 28.5 0.6 26.8 30.4 26.1 27.3
APH 3 0.3 11.4 33.1 26.5 28.5 - - - -
Return 0.6 27.9 34.3 27 29.2 0.6 27.7 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2/3
Return 0.9 39.2 33.4 26.8 28.8 0.7 29.7 29.4 25.7 26.8
75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s) – Block APH # 1 Intake with 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) -
and APH # 3 ducting system Block APH # 1 and APH # 3 ducting system
APH 1 - - - - - - - - - -
APH 2 0.6 26.7 32.7 26.5 28.3 0.7 33.5 30.1 26 27.2
APH 3 - - - - - - - - - -
Return 0.6 27.8 33.9 26.6 29 0.8 34.7 29.4 25.7 26.8
APH 2/3
Return 0.7 30.3 33.6 26.8 28.9 0.8 37.2 29.4 25.7 26.8
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block APH # 1 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block APH # 1
and APH # 3 ducting system and APH # 3 ducting system – 100 kW spot
cooling system before the APH # 2 intake
APH 1 - - - - - - - - - -
APH 2 0.8 33.9 35.1 26.9 29.2 0.7 33.5 27.7 25.4 26
APH 3 - - - - - - - - -
Return 0.8 35.3 35.6 27.2 29.1 0.8 34.7 26.9 25.1 25.6
APH 2/3
Return 0.8 38.5 35.2 27.2 28.3 0.8 37.2 26.9 25.4 25.8
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block APH # 1 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block APH # 1
and APH # 3 ducting system and APH # 3 ducting system – 100 kW spot
cooling system before the APH # 2 intake
APH 1 - - - - - - - - - -
APH 2 0.8 33.9 35.1 26.9 29.2 0.7 33.5 27.7 25.4 26
APH 3 - - - - - - - - -
Return 0.8 35.3 35.6 27.2 29.1 0.8 34.7 26.9 25.1 25.6
APH 2/3
Return 0.8 38.5 35.2 27.2 28.3 0.8 37.2 26.9 25.4 25.8
 100

Table 6.4. Results of different simulation scenarios using Ventsim Model

Location Forcing system Exhausting system
Dilution time (min) Dilution time (min)
75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s) 75 hp auxiliary fan (32 m3/s)
APH 2 48 48
APH 2 return 45 0
APH 2 & 3 return 42 0
Return 36 37
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s)
APH 2 32 28
APH 2 return 31 0
APH 2 & 3 return 29 0
Return 26 25
150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block 150 hp auxiliary fan (41 m3/s) - Block
APH # 1 and APH # 3 ducting system APH # 1 and APH # 3 ducting system
APH 2 9 7
APH 2 return 7 0
APH 2 & 3 return 7 0
Return 6 6

6.4. Conclusions

In this study, climatic models were developed and calibrated using measured climatic data.

Considerations were also given to the fact that arsenic dust concentrations may be present

at the face. The results of the simulation model demonstrate that exhausting systems

provide relatively cooler air when there are multiple auxiliary fans serving multiple dead-

end headings or production workings. Forcing systems provide increased airflow velocities

at the face compared to exhausting systems. It is one of the advantages of using a forcing

system especially when a higher air flow is required at the face to assist in turbulent mixing

of gasses (e.g. methane) that may be emitted from the fragmented ore or newly exposed

surfaces. Furthermore, when there is a notable arsenic concentration or dust at the face, an

exhausting system is preferred as the contaminated air is drawn directly into the ducting

system. Air and dust filters can also be included within the exhausting system to reduce the

arsenic and dust concentration. However, the additional pressure drop across the filter and

the cost of changing the air filter must be taken into account. Increasing the air flow at the
 101

production heading decreases the heat load and decrease the dilution time of arsenic dust

concentration at the working faces.

When a spot cooling system is required, an exhausting system has an advantage over a

forcing system. When forcing system is used, spot cooling systems must be placed either

in the intake airways before the auxiliary fan or close to the immediate face of the dead-

end heading. However, there will be more flexibility in placing spot cooling systems when

an exhausting ventilation system is used. The advantages of both forcing and exhausting

systems can be merged when an overlap ventilation system is used. A push-pull ventilation

system provides adequate air velocity at the face of production headings and the

contaminated air will be directed into the ducting system. The problem with an overlap

ventilation system is that it requires a large cross sectional area where two ducting systems

can be installed. For this case study the use of an overlap ventilation system is not feasible

because of the cross-sectional area of the drift.

 102

Chapter 7 Quantifying the Thermal Damping Effect in

Underground Vertical Shafts using the Nonlinear
Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) Algorithm
7.1. Introduction

Climatic models are usually developed and used to predict the climatic conditions in future

underground mines and determine whether a mine’s ventilation system (primary/auxiliary)

can provide adequate thermal conditions in the development and production workings.

Climatic models can also be developed and used for existing underground mines to

quantify the heat generated by various heat sources, and to assess what cooling strategy

would be the most cost-effective method to control the thermal environment. For existing

operations, ventilation and climatic data collection are essential to validate the ventilation

and climatic models, which can then be used to understand transient heat transport

processes along vertical and horizontal airways, determine the heat profile of the mine and

to prepare short-term and long-term airflow delivery plans. To design and manage an

underground ventilation system with respect to safety and cost, it is important to

incorporate time-dependent heat exchange processes in the system, so that any unusual

activities and rapid changes can be taken into account. For future underground operations,

there are several key elements which need to be captured and incorporated into the climatic

model to accurately predict temperature and humidity levels. These key elements include

the thermal damping effect, the dynamic heat exchange processes between the ventilating

air and the surrounding rock, and equipment activity profiles throughout localized

production and development areas and mine-wide.

 103

With the exception of one mine ventilation software that is under development and testing

(Danko, 2013), no other ventilation or climatic modeling software packages have the

ability take into account the “thermal damping effect (TDE)” (also known as thermal

flywheel effect) when modeling the thermal environment in deep and hot underground

mines. The major difficulty in incorporating TDE comes from a large number of variables

interacting with each other plus the time-dependent heat and mass transport processes that

control the flow of strata heat into/from the mine airways. Stroh (1979) introduced the TDE

in the mine ventilation literature as a phenomenon that was observed in several shaft

surveys, and he defined the thermal damping “… as a value which varies from mine to

mine.” Danko et al., (1988) developed analytical solutions to take into account the

temperature damping based on the transient thermal mass transport processes, which are

presently incorporated into a mine ventilations simulator. Brake (2002) reported a

descriptive explanation of TDE (as low and high) for the intake airways in two

underground mines in Australia. Brake (2008) defined TDE as a function of the travel time

and contact distance for air traveling in the intake airways. McPherson (2009) mentioned

that because of significant surface temperature variations during daytime and nighttime, it

is common for the walls and the surrounding rock to absorb heat during the day and to emit

heat during the night. Describing thermal damping, he noted“… the phenomenon continues

along the intake airways and tends to dampen out the effects of the surface temperature

variation as the air travels down vertical airways into an underground mine.” Kocsis &

Hardcastle (2010) observed TDE experimentally during climatic data collection in deep

underground mines in Canada. Their study showed that during summer and winter there is

a change in the phase angle of the periodic and harmonic air temperature variations. A
 104

recent study also verified this phase shift and its effect on the temperature of the mine air

through climatic simulations performed on a ventilation-thermal-humidity model (Danko,

2013).

7.2. The Thermal Damping Effect (TDE)

Heat is transferred to the mine air from a variety of sources including auto-compression,

strata, mining equipment, explosives, and more. In many cases, the airflow itself is

sufficient to remove the heat which has been transferred to the mine air along vertical and

horizontal airways and during the mining processes (Roghanchi et al., 2015). In deep metal

mines, however, the heat removal as the dominant environmental problem, may necessitate

the use of some method of cooling (e.g. mine-wide, localized). When cool air passes

through a horizontal airway, its temperature usually increases. This is caused by the natural

geothermal heat being conducted through the rock towards the airway. The geothermal

heat will then pass into the mine air through the boundary layers that exist in the air close

to the rock surface (Carpenter et al., 2015). The envelope of rock close to the newly driven

airway will rapidly cool at first, and there will accordingly be a relatively high rate of initial

heat release into the mine air. This will decline in time, and the rock surface will gradually

cool and approach an equilibrium state when its temperature equals that of the air

(Roghanchi et al., 2016). Furthermore, if the airway is wet, then the increase in the dry-

bulb temperature is less noticeable, or it may even fall. This is a result of the cooling effect

of evaporation. Heat may still emanate from the strata. However, much of this heat is

utilized to transfer the water molecules into the mine air in the form of water vapor. The

heat content of the air-water mixture will rise due to the internal energy of the added water

vapor (McPherson, 1993).

 105

When air descends an intake shaft, its lining and the surrounding strata will emit heat during

the night when the incoming air is cool and, on the contrary, absorb heat during the day if

the air temperature becomes greater than that of the strata temperature. The depth of the

intake shaft where heat flow reverses varies by season (to some extent even daily), firstly

due to the initial starting conditions of the air (Td, Tw, BP), and secondly, due to the rock

surface temperature and its geothermal gradient. The change of the phase angle of the

periodic, harmonic and temperature variation is known to be the thermal damping effect.

Figure 7.1 and Figure 7.2 illustrate the thermal damping effect in a production shaft. Figure

2, for example, shows that during summertime, the temperature at the top of the shaft varies

widely, from a high value of 33 ˚C during a sunny midday to a low value of 19 ˚C in the

middle of the night, which represents a temperature difference of ΔTd-surface = 19 ˚C.

However, at the bottom of the shaft, the amplitude of the air temperature variation is much

smaller and varies from 29.5 ˚C to 25.5 ˚C, which represents a temperature difference of

ΔTd-bottom = 4 ˚C. Measured climatic parameters indicate that the lining of the shaft and the

surrounding rock act as an energy reducing mechanism, which reduces the amplitude of

the temperature wave. Furthermore, during the daytime, at some depth down the intake

shaft, the air temperature in the intake shaft, which is also heated by auto-compression,

develops higher values than that of the virgin rock temperature (VRT) of the surrounding

rock. Consequently, sensible heat is transferred from the intake air into the rock, actually

cooling the air. However, during the night, as the temperature of the air on surface cools,

there is a greater potential for the heat to flow from the rock into the mine air.
 106

Figure 7.1. Heat exchanges in a vertical opening during day and night as a function of ambient temperature
and virgin rock temperature.

Figure 7.2. Dry-bulb damping in an intake shaft during a 24 hours period.

There are many conventional mine ventilation and climatic simulation programs available

to conduct heat studies and predict the climatic conditions in future underground mines.

Most relevant transport processes for heat and humidity can be modeled with any of these

software packages. However, short-time variations such as hourly or daily and more

importantly seasonal temperature changes can induce significant modeling errors if the

strata heat does not follow a true instantaneous heat flux model. As shown in Figure 7.2,

the daily temperature variation at the bottom of the intake shaft can be much less than at
 107

the top of the intake shaft, which is a function of many factors including the contact time

between the mine air and the lining of the shaft and travel distance. It is important to

accurately predict the temperature and the humidity levels at the bottom of the intake

airways for future underground mines because a well design ventilation system may be

sufficient to provide adequate climatic conditions. However, climatic modeling errors that

are induced by ignoring the thermal damping effect can indicate that a refrigeration system

is needed to provide adequate work conditions. In some cases, the additional capital and

operating costs related to the cooling system could indicate that otherwise, a viable

underground operation would be unfeasible.

To evaluate the accuracy of the standard ventilation software, the intake shafts at our

partner mines were modeled using ClimsimTM and VentsimTM programs. A comparison

between measured climatic values at the bottom of an intake shaft and parameters

generated through the use of ventilation and climatic models is shown in Figure 7.3. This

figure indicates that current, commercially available mine ventilation software do not take

into account the thermal damping along the vertical shaft. Therefore, the models predict

same diurnal temperature variations without considering the thermal damping at the bottom

of the intake shaft as for the top of the intake shaft. One software package with its time-

dependent solution may have the ability to simulate the thermal flywheel effect and the

associated time lag (Danko, 2013). However, this program is under development and

testing, and it not yet commercially available.

 108

Figure 7.3. Comparison between measured air temperatures (e.g. DATA) at the bottom of an intake shaft
and predicted air temperatures by ventilation and climatic simulation programs.

The thermal damping effect on the mine air depends on many ventilation, climatic and

geotechnical parameters including the air temperature of the surface, air volume, contact

distance, wall wetness, the virgin rock temperature, the thermal properties of the rock, etc.

For instance, it has been observed that the thermal damping effect along an intake decline

is much higher than the thermal damping effect of a similar amount of air that travels to

the same production level through a vertical airway. Longer the intake, the tempearture

damping is higher. This is why the air temperature underground at some point, which is

located at some distance from the collar if the intake shaft is not affected by daily air

temperature variation on the surface (See Figure 7.4). The most important environmental,

physical and dynamic parameters that affect temperature damping in underground mines

are summarized in Table 7.1.

 109

Table 7.1. Critical parameters that influence temperature damping in underground vertical openings
Environmental Parameters Physical Parameters Dynamic Parameters
Surface temperature Size of opening Air quantity
Intake relative humidity Shape of opening Travel time
Barometric pressure Wall roughness Contact distance
Groundwater Wall wetness
Air density Disturbance objects

Figure 7.4. The thermal damping effect depends on the travel time and airflow-wall contact distance - For
an airway located at a long distance from the collar of the intake shaft, daily temperature variations are
negligible.
7.2. Quantifying the Thermal Damping Effect using NARX

7.2.1. Climatic Data Collection at Underground Mines

Climatic and ventilation parameters were collected at two underground mines in Nevada.

The primary ventilation system in both mines is of exhaust type, with the primary fans

located at the top of the exhaust shaft. The selection criteria for the climatic monitoring

units focused on data storage and their capability to continually measure and record

climatic and ventilation parameters. Other requirements included: (1) the monitoring units

should be lightweight and easy to instal and should not interfere with the mining

operations; (2) the monitoring units should include built-in batteries with no external power

source requirements; (3) the monitoring units should require minimum maintenance, and

the calibration procedure to be straight forward; (4) recording and downloading the

climatic data must be straightforward and quick; (5) the units should be fairly accurate for

climatic and ventilation surveys.

 110

The “ACR Smart-Reader Plus” multi-channel monitoring units (See Figure 7.5) were

selected to monitor and record the climatic parameters in the production stopes, dead-end

development headings and throughout the mine. The units continually measured and

recorded Td, RH, and BP. From these parameters, Tw was then calculated. The monitoring

units were capable of recording these values at various time intervals specified by the user,

and each unit had a storage capacity of 128 KB. The climatic parameters were downloaded

on a mobile computer as shown in Figure 5. The collected climatic and ventilation data

was used to validate the climatic models.

Figure 7.5. The climatic data recorded by the monitoring units was downloaded on a laptop.
At two underground precious metal mines in Nevada, two production shafts and one

ventilation shaft (intake) were selected for climatic data collection. The climatic

monitoring units were programmed to collect Td, RH and BP readings at two-minute

intervals for a 4-week time frame. Table 7.2 summarizes the geometrical elements of the

production and ventilation shafts and their intake air volumes. One monitoring unit was

installed on the surface to measure and record the climatic conditions during daytime and

nighttime. The following unit was installed just below the collar of the production/

ventilation shaft to capture any heat added to the mine air around the collar of the shaft and

to eliminate the effect of radiation. Monitoring units were also installed at the bottom of
 111

the production and ventilation shafts. Table 7.3 presents the locations where the units were

installed and the climatic monitoring plan. It should be mentioned that no cooling system

was employed at these tow underground mines.

Table 7.2. The geometrical elements of the production and ventilation shafts
Shaft diameter Shaft area Shaft depth Quantity
Type of shaft
(m) (m2) (m) (m3/s)
Production
Shaft #1 7.3 41.85 580 205
shaft
Production
Shaft #2 6.7 35.26 579 241
shaft
Ventilation
Shaft #3 6.1 29.22 503 223
shaft

Table 7.3. Climatic monitoring plan at two underground precious metal mines in Nevada
Intake Shafts (production/ventilation)
Locations On surface, and at the top and bottom of the production/ventilation shafts
Purpose To identify and quantify the thermal damping effect
To understand the transient heat exchange processes between the mine air and
the surrounding rock
Monitoring plan The ACR units were installed at the top and at the bottom of the shafts to record
climatic data at two-minute intervals for four weeks at a time. The unit on
surface was set to record the surface climate and any unusual activities that can
affect the temperature of the intake air

7.2.2. The Nonlinear Autoregressive with External Input (NARX) Algorithm

An artificial neural network (ANN) is an interconnected group of nodes, where each node

represents an artificial neuron, and an arrow represents a connection from the output of one

neuron to the input of another. Artificial neural networks can be considered as a form of

machine learning, in which the system learns to recognize an output variable based on a

series of input variables (Hang et al., 2014; Majidi et al., 2015). Data is processed through

a number of interconnected neurons which form synaptic connections from the input nodes

through a hidden layer before converging on the output neurons. Each input and hidden

neuron consist of statistical weights which are capable of adapting the exact parameters

that are modified by an algorithm over the course of network training procedures (Kriesel,
 112

2007; Khodabandelu and Fadali, 2016). These weights essentially form the synaptic

connections among neurons, which will activate during network construction. This form

of computation is capable of operating in parallel units, much like the human nervous

system. The ANNs are capable of nonlinear modeling and can, therefore, provide a useful

alternative approach to a number of both theoretical and real-world problems (e.g. Ticknor,

2013; Ruiz et al., 2016; Doucoure et al., 206; Ding et al., 2016).

In this study, artificial neural network modeling was used as a time series predicting tool

to estimate the temperatures at the bottom of the production and ventilations shafts by

taking into account the thermal damping effect as a function of the surface temperature.

The NARX algorithm is a class of discrete-time and non-linear system that can be

presented as Eq. 1. The topology of an NARX network is shown in Figure 7.6.

𝑦(𝑛 + 1) = 𝑓[𝑦(𝑛), … , (𝑦(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑦 + 1); 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑘), 𝑥(𝑢 − 𝑘 + 1), … , 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑢 − 𝑘 +

1)] Eq. 7.1

Where: x(n) and y(n) donate, respectively, are the input and output of the model at discrete-

time step “n,” while dx ≥ 1, dy ≥ 1, and dy ≥ dx, are the input memory and output memory

orders, respectively. The parameter k (k ≥ 0) is a delay term, known as the process dead-

time (Ding et al., 2016).Considering k = 0, the NARX model can be simplified as:

𝑦(𝑛 + 1) = 𝑓[𝑦(𝑛), … , (𝑦(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑦 + 1); 𝑥(𝑛), 𝑥(𝑢), … , 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑢 + 1)] Eq. 7.2
 113

Figure 7.6. Topology of the NARX model (Z-1 is the unit time delay)

The most common learning rule for the NARX network is the Levenberg-Marquardt

backpropagation procedure (LMBP) (Marquardt, 1963; Hagan & Menhaj, 1994; Alwakeel

& Shaaban, 2010; Hong et al., 2014). This training function is often the fastest

backpropagation-type algorithm. The LMBP algorithm was designed to approximate the

second-order derivative with no need to compute the Hessian matrix, therefore increasing

the training speed. However, this training function is not powerful in forecasting values for

small and “noisy” datasets such as the datasets of daily temperature fluctuations in

underground mines. The Bayesian regularized artificial neural networks are more robust

than standard back-propagation networks and can reduce or eliminate the need for lengthy

cross-validation procedures (Hong et al., 2014). The Bayesian regularization is a

mathematical process that converts a nonlinear regression into a well-posed statistical

problem in the manner of a ridge regression. This algorithm typically takes more time but
 114

can result in good generalization for noisy data sets (Hong et al., 2014). The Bayesian

regularization adds a term to this equation (Forsee & Hagan, 1997):

F = βED + αEw Eq. 7.3

where: F is the objective function, ED is the sum of squared errors, Ew is the sum of the

square of the network weights, and α and β are objective function parameters (MacKay,

1992). In the Bayesian network, the weights are considered as random variables, and thus

their density function is written according to the Baye’s rules (Forsee & Hagan, 1997), as

follows:

𝑃(𝐷|𝑤,𝛽,𝑀) 𝑃(𝑤|𝛼,𝑀)
𝑃(𝑤 |𝐷, 𝛼, 𝐵, 𝑀) = 𝑃(𝐷|𝛼,𝛽,𝑀)
Eq. 7.4

Where: w is the vector of network weights, D represents the data vector, and M is the neural

network model being used. Forsee & Hagan (1997) assumed that the noise in the data was

Gaussian, and with this assumption, they were able to determine the probability density

function for the weights. Forsee & Hagan (1997) proposed a Gauss-Newton approximation

to the Hessian matrix, which is possible if the Levenburg–Marquardt training algorithm is

used to locate minimum values. This technique reduces the potential for arriving at local

minima, thus increasing the generalizability of the network.

The novelty of this technique is the probabilistic nature of the network weights in relation

to the given dataset and model framework. As a neural network grows through additional

hidden layer neurons, the potential for overfitting increases dramatically, and the need for

a validation set to determine a stopping point becomes crucial. In the Bayesian regularized

networks, overly complex models are penalized, as unnecessary linkage weights are

effectively driven to zero. The network will calculate and train on the non-trivial weights,
 115

also known as the effective number of parameters, which will converge to a constant as the

network grows (Burden & Winkler, 2008). The mean square error (MSE) is then used to

calculate the performance of the NARX model, as follows:

𝑆𝑆𝐸 = ∑𝑛𝑖=1(𝑦̂𝑖 − 𝑦𝑖 )2 Eq. 7.5

𝑆𝑆𝐸
𝑀𝑆𝐸 = 𝑛
Eq. 7.6

7.3. The Performance of the NARX Model when Predicting the Thermal

Damping Effect in Vertical Shafts

Data selection was carried out by a preliminary pre-processing algorithm, which

considered all ventilation and climatic parameters which were collected during a 3-month

period on the surface, along the production shafts (intake), as well as parameters collected

during a 2-month period along the ventilation shaft (intake). There are several unknown

sharp temperature fluctuations, which should be removed from the climatic data, as shown

in Figure 7.7. The “smoothed out” graph was obtained using the exponential smoothing

approach, which is provided in equation 7.7:

𝑦(𝑡) = 𝛼𝑥(𝑡) + (1 − 𝛼) 𝑦(𝑡 − 1) Eq. 7.7

Where: α is the smoothing factor (0 < α < 1), and t is the time step (t > 0).

The climatic data that is influenced by natural occurrences such as rain/snow should also

be detected and be treated so that the model performance is not influenced by unusual

temperature changes. Furthermore, a subsequent step was also performed to separate data

into a “training” dataset and a “test” dataset. For each intake shaft, an ANN model was

developed and tested based on processed datasets. The data is not normalized because
 116

firstly, both input and output are in the same units and secondly, the actual values were

needed to identify the damping ratio in the vertical production and ventilation shafts.

Figure 8 illustrates the performance of the NARX model for Shaft #1. A set of data was

selected, which consists of dry-bulb temperatures collated at the top and bottom of Shaft

#1 during a 24-hour time frame. The performance of the NARX model for the production

and ventilation shafts is provided in Table 7.4 and Figure 7.8. As shown in Table 7.4, the

model can successfully predict the temperature at the bottom of the intake shaft, which was

diminished by the effect of thermal damping. The same procedure was applied for Shaft

#2 (production) and Shaft #3 (ventilation) to predict the dampened temperatures at their

bottom.

Figure 7.7. Smoothed out data to eliminate unknown sharp temperature fluctuations within the database.
 117

Figure 7.8. NARX performance in Shaft #1 (R2 = 0.99; MSE = 0.923)

Table 7.4. The performance of NARX model for the production and ventilation shafts
Shaft Number Type of shaft R2 MSE
Shaft #1 Production shaft 0.99 0.129
Shaft #2 Production shaft 0.99 0.217
Shaft #3 Ventilation shaft 0.97 0.276

The ANN models based on NARX can be applied to any numerical method based

ventilation and climatic modeling software to predict the thermal damping effect in vertical

airways. The NARX network provides an appropriate prediction accuracy, while the

complexity of the system is reduced through exogenous data. Despite the fact that the ANN

model based on the NARX algorithm is powerful and successful in forecasting diminished

temperature values in vertical airways, it may not be practical to apply this method to

predict the temperature at the bottom of the production and ventilation shafts due to the

complexity of modeling work. Consequently, the time series model was simplified to a

conventional time series model in an attempt to determine simple damping ratios for the

intake shafts.

A nonlinear input-output time series equation can be written as:

 118

𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑓[𝑥(𝑛), … , 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑢 + 1)] Eq. 7.8

Where: f (.) can be approximated using a neural network.

These nonlinear input-output time series can be simplified to a “linear regression” model

as shown in Equation 7.9, and even further to a simple linear regression, as shown in

Equation 7.10:

𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑓[𝑥(𝑛) + … + 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑢 + 1)] = 𝑎1 𝑥(𝑛) + … + 𝑎𝑛 𝑥(𝑛 − 𝑑𝑢 + 1)] + 𝑏 Eq. 7.9

𝑦(𝑛) = 𝑓[𝑥(𝑛)] = 𝑏 + 𝑎𝑥𝑛

𝑎 = 𝑓[𝑄, 𝑇𝐷𝐸, 𝑑𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝐹𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑡];

𝑏 = 𝑓[𝐴𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑉𝑅𝑇, 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑡ℎ, 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑡] Eq. 7.10

Table 7.5 shows these simple linear regression equations, which were developed for the

production and ventilation shafts at two underground mines. The constant value “b” for

each intake shaft is different due to the heat added to the system, which can vary as a

function of depth and the virgin rock temperature profile of each mine (e.g. geothermal

step). However, because the production shafts have comparable geometrical elements (e.g.

diameter) and the intake air volume descending the production shafts is also comparable,

the values of the damping coefficient “a” are very close (e.g. 0.29 versus 0.31).

The damping coefficient “a” for the ventilation shaft has a relatively different value as for

the production shafts, because the ventilation shaft is not equipped with a hoisting system,

and it is clear of steel frames that support the guiding systems for the cage and skips, as

these objects are also acting as a heat sink medium. Above all, the substantial benefit of

these “simple linear regression” equations presented in Table 7.5 is that for similar airways
 119

such as production shafts or ventilation shafts, simple equations can be developed, which

can be used to determine the temperature at the bottom of vertical airways at an acceptable

level of accuracy. Furthermore, these damping coefficients could be used by ventilation

and climatic modeling software, thus eliminating the need to code and incorporate

complicated transient heat and mass transport algorithms to quantify the thermal damping

effect along vertical airways.

Table 7.5. Simple linear regression equations to predict the dry-bulb temperature at the bottom of intake
shafts.
Shaft Number Equation R2 MSE

Shaft # 1 (Production) TB = 20.68 + 0.29 x TS 0.78 1.12

Shaft # 2 (Production) TB = 25.47 + 0.31 x TS 0.81 0.98

Shaft # 3 (Ventilation) TB = 21.59 + 0.40 x TS 0.73 1.58

TB: dry-bulb temperature at the bottom of the shaft, TS = dry-bulb temperature on surface

Table 7.6 and Figure 7.9 illustrate an example of error calculations when predicting the

dampened temperatures at the bottom of production Shaft #1, based on various forecasting

methods such as NARX, nonlinear time series, and simple linear regression models. As

shown in Table 7.5, NARX has the most accurate prediction with R2 = 0.99. By decreasing

the complexity of the model to a simple linear regression, the model prediction accuracy

decreases to R2 = 0.81, with minimum and maximum temperature errors of -1.5 ˚C and 1.9

˚C, respectively. While these errors are noticeable compared to the NARX model, these

simple linear regression models have a much better performance in predicting the thermal

damping effect than any of the currently available ventilation and climatic simulation

programs, with the most advanced of them returning minimum and maximum errors of 2.5

˚C to 6.6 ˚C, respectively. Furthermore, field observations in large and deep metal mines

have shown that when the thermal damping effect is not taken into account, the difference
 120

between simulated and measured temperature values at the bottom of intake airways can

vary from 6 ˚C to 10 ˚C (Kocsis & Hardcastle, 2010). These simple linear regression

equations derived from the NARX algorithm can be used to estimate the damping effect

along vertical intake airways, thus minimizing the errors when predicting the climatic

conditions at the bottom of intake airways for future underground mines.

Table 7.6. Comparison of different time series prediction models performance for the shaft #1.
Error (˚C)
Time series method R2 MSE
Average Maximum Minimum

NARX 0.99 0.123 -0.01 0.58 -0.54

Nonlinear time series 0.97 0.712 0.04 1.34 -1.39

Simple linear regression 0.81 0.986 0.08 1.93 -1.58

Figure 7.9. Comparison of error estimations based on NARX, nonlinear time series, and simple linear

regression
 121

7.4. Conclusions

An artificial neural network (ANN) based on nonlinear autoregressive time series

algorithm with external input (NARX) was used as a novel method to predict Td at the

bottom of the production and ventilation shafts. The performance of the ANN model based

on NARX model was excellent in predicting the temperatures at the bottom of the intake

shafts. However, due to the complexity of the modeling work, the input-output time series

model was simplified to a linear regression model, which can be easily used to predict the

temperature at the bottom of the intake shaft at an acceptable level of accuracy. The

substantial benefits of these simple linear regression equations presented in Table 7.5, can

be used in conjunction with commercially available mine ventilation or climatic simulation

programs to predict more realistic temperature values by taking into account the thermal

damping effect in vertical airways. Furthermore, the damping coefficients (a and b) for the

production and ventilation shafts could be easily implemented into ventilation and climatic

modeling programs, thus eliminating the need to incorporate complicated time-dependent

heat and mass transport algorithms in order to quantify the thermal damping effect in

vertical airways. A future related study should look at the development of a general model,

which would take into account the characteristics of the intake airways and the rock thermal

properties at various underground operations such as shaft diameter, depth, lining material,

virgin rock temperature and air volume. The same approach presented in this paper can

also be used to predict the thermal damping effect on the wet-bulb temperature (Tw) at the

bottom of production and ventilation shafts.

 122

Chapter 8 Conclusions

8.1. Objectives

Heat is a hazard that may underestimated in most mining operations. This is mostly because

people are unaware of its effects due to less education or lack of it thereof and its salient

consequences. Heat stress in the underground environment is influenced by numerous

factors including virgin rock temperature, geothermal gradient and mining equipment. The

significance of mine workers to maintain relative body comfort in deep hot underground

mines is of paramount importance. This is because productivity, health, safety and the

overall performance of the mines largely depend on it. When the underground working

places become excessively hot, the volume of a mine’s intake air, its temperature and

humidity can be altered in order to improve the underground climatic conditions.

Nevada’s underground precious metal mines are becoming gradually deeper while

employing large diesel powered mining equipment to increase the production rates. The

ability of ventilation systems to assure appropriate climatic conditions for the underground

workers will decrease as a function of increasing mining depth and an ever rising level of

mechanization. Most of Nevada’s underground metal mines are not considered to be hot

mines due to the fact these mines do not have an extensive spread-out heat problem.

However, there are several localized areas where temperature and humidity can exceed the

threshold limit values during development and production operations. Consequently, heat

may rather be considered a contaminant, which must be reduced by means of redesigning

the mines’ ventilation system, and as a last resort by employing localized spot cooling

systems. The main focuses of this research work were to 1. Develop a new methodology
 123

to select appropriate heat stress indices for underground mining application 2. Develop

recommendation regarding best practices for design and use of climatic monitoring systems

in hot US mines; 3. Identify and quantify the thermal damping effect in underground

openings using artificial neural network.

8.2. Research Results

 Selecting an appropriate heat stress index for underground mines

A method was proposed coupled to a defined strategy for selecting and recommending heat

stress indices to be used in underground metal mines in the US and worldwide based on a

thermal comfort model. The performance of current heat stress indices used in underground

mines varies based on the climatic conditions and the level of activities. Therefore, by

carefully selecting or establishing an appropriate heat stress index is of paramount

importance to ensure the safety, health and increasing productivity of the underground

workers. This method presents an important tool to assess and select the most appropriate

index for certain climatic conditions in order to protect the underground workers from heat-

related illnesses. Although complex, the method presents results that are easy to interpret

and understand than any of the currently available evaluation methods.

 Best practices for design and use of climatic monitoring systems in hot US mines

Employing the most effective underground climatic monitoring systems depend mainly on

the purpose of climatic monitoring, the magnitude of the heat load to be removed,

monitoring locations and costs. The process of developing a monitoring program includes

determination of required parameters to be measured, selection of monitoring units,

identification of key locations to be monitored and the timing of monitoring. However, the
 124

challenges are numerous: the key locations are not always accessible, the mine is never

truly at steady state, there are always unknown temperature fluctuations during the

monitoring phase, and the measurements can be delayed due to rapid changes, to list a few.

The lessons learned from the climatic monitoring programs, which were conducted over

one year at two underground metal mines in Nevada, were discussed. The practices and

challenges in using continuous climatic monitoring systems in deep and hot metal mines

was highlighted. Heat generated by various heat sources were quantified and a heat load

profile was developed for our partner mine in Nevada. The importance of use of continuous

climatic monitoring systems were demonstrated based on variability of contribution of heat

generation by major sources as a function of surface temperature. Auxiliary ventilation

systems in our partner mines were modified in order to maintain the comfort limits for

underground workers.

 Quantify the thermal damping effect in underground vertical openings

There are several occurrences that cannot be captured when simple spot units are being

used for climatic monitoring purposes. This includes the thermal damping effect, dynamic

heat exchanges between the ventilating air and surrounding environments and unknown

sharp increases in temperature during production cycles. These elements are particularly

important to predict the underground climatic conditions within newly located orebodies

and in future mines. As air falls down the intake shaft, its lining and the strata will emit

heat during the night when the incoming air is cool and, on the contrary, will absorb heat

during the day when the temperature of the air becomes greater than of the strata. This

cyclic phenomenon, also known as the “thermal damping effect.” will continue throughout

the year reducing the effect of surface air temperature variation. An artificial neural
 125

network (ANN) based on nonlinear autoregressive time series algorithm with external input

(NARX) was used as a novel method to predict Td at the bottom of the production and

ventilation shafts. The performance of the ANN model based on NARX model was

excellent in predicting the temperatures at the bottom of the intake shafts. However, due to

the complexity of the modeling work, the input-output time series model was simplified to

a linear regression model, which can be easily used to predict the temperature at the bottom

of the intake shaft at an acceptable level of accuracy.

8.3. Research recommendations

 Employing the most effective underground climatic monitoring systems depend mainly

on the purpose of climatic monitoring, the magnitude of the heat load to be removed,

monitoring locations and costs.

 In hot and humid underground mines, the heat index used for comfort evaluation must

be carefully selected. This heat index shall provide protection for the mine workers as

much as possible. The primary objective in selecting a heat stress index is simplicity. It

is more likely that mine ventilation engineers and the mining crew in general will

approve a thermal index due, in part, to the fact that the index can be presented in a

format that they can understand and apply. That is, if the index is simple.

 On the other hand, a simple thermal index may limit its relevance to a very specific case

or a localized area. However, the necessity to apply numerous modifications to simple

indices in order to adjust them for various work conditions, can negate the apparent

advantage of a thermal index to be directly used to protect the mine workers.

 Airflow velocities of 1 m/s and 2 m/s, which will guarantee thermal comfort, were

determined by means of climatic modeling and simulation exercises. Based on the

 126

pattern of the results, the authors recommend an optimal airflow velocity of 1.5 m/s

throughout production workings.

 In general, forcing auxiliary ventilation system has must be considered over exhausting

ventilation system because 1. Fresh air is delivered to the working face where workers

are present, 2. Forcing systems provide increased airflow velocities at the face compared

to exhausting systems, 3. It is one of the advantages of using a forcing system especially

when a higher air flow is required at the face, 4. Another advantage of a forcing system

is that flexible ducting can be used due to positive pressure along the ducting system.

 When there is a notable gas concentration or dust at the face, an exhausting system is

preferred as the contaminated air is drawn directly into the ducting system. Air and dust

filters can also be included within the exhausting system to reduce the arsenic and dust

concentration. However, the additional pressure drop across the filter and the cost of

changing the air filter must be taken into account. Increasing the air flow at the

production heading decreases the heat load and decrease the dilution time of arsenic dust

concentration at the working faces.

 When a spot cooling system is required, an exhausting system has an advantage over a

forcing system. When forcing system is used, spot cooling systems must be placed either

in the intake airways before the auxiliary fan or close to the immediate face of the dead-

end heading. However, there will be more flexibility in placing spot cooling systems

when an exhausting ventilation system is used.

 Assessments of climatic conditions showed that the underground mine environment is

a rather complex system. The mine is never at steady state and there are always transient

heat exchanges between the ventilating air and surrounding environments. There are
 127

several important occurrences, which cannot be captured when simple spot measuring

units are used for climatic monitoring purposes. This includes the thermal damping

effect, dynamic heat exchanges between the ventilating air and surrounding

environments and unknown sharp increases in air temperature during monitoring

phases. It is therefore critical to incorporate time and phase changes throughout the

mine.

 This study shows that hourly, daily and monthly temperature changes at surface itself

can produce significant modelling errors. The difference between simulated and

measured climatic parameters is the result of the dynamic time delay of temperature

spikes along pathways of the ventilating air due to the thermal damping effect. The

presence of different heat sources throughout a mine changes the system completely.

 It is critical to incorporate irregularities into the measured data, so that any unusual

activities and rapid changes can be taken into account when designing primary and

auxiliary ventilation systems. There are unknown sharp temperature fluctuation and data

irregularities at different locations of an underground mine. The temperature

fluctuations can be due to inflow of gasses from the rib or back, ore oxidation, auxiliary

fans, mining equipment, groundwater and more.

 Dynamic heat exchange between the rock and the mine air, similar to the case when an

auxiliary fan is turned on and off, cannot be calculated by means of standard modeling

software. The accuracy in predicting the climatic conditions in future underground

mines is critical, particularly in cases when the environmental parameters are close to

their threshold limit values (TLV).

 128

 There are many conventional mine ventilation and climatic simulation programs

available to conduct heat studies and predict the climatic conditions in future

underground mines. Most relevant transport processes for heat and humidity can be

modeled with any of these software packages. However, short-time variations such as

hourly or daily and more importantly seasonal temperature changes can induce

significant modeling errors if the strata heat does not follow a true instantaneous heat

flux model.

8.4. Future Research Works

While much is known about the heat balance of the human body and its tolerance to the

hot and humid environment, many questions still remain. The effect of heat on worker

health, safety, and productivity is extremely complex. The behavioral parameters can be a

very critical rule on the reaction of human body to heat exposure. On the top of that, with

respect to heat, underground mine environment is complex since the mine is never in steady

state. The challenges in climatic monitoring are numerous: the key locations are not always

accessible, the mine is never truly at steady state, there are always unknown temperature

fluctuations during the monitoring phase, and the measurements can be delayed due to

rapid changes, to list a few. Future work on heat issues in underground mines may include:

 Development of dynamic heat load profile in underground mines

 Development of the thermal management policy for underground mines

 Study the effect of behavioral parameters on the human body response to heat

exposure

 Application of Ventilation on Demand (VOD) control system to decrease the heat load

in underground environment
 129

 Development of a general model to quantify the thermal damping effect, which would

take into account the characteristics of the intake airways and the rock thermal

properties at various underground operations such as shaft diameter, depth, lining

material, virgin rock temperature and air volume.

 130

References
ACGIH, (2014). TLVs and BEIs: threshold limit values for chemical substances and physical
agents and biological exposure indices, Cincinnati, OH: American Conference of Governmental
Industrial Hygienists.
Adams, W. C. (1977). Influence of exercise mode and selected ambient conditions on skin
temperature. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 301(1), 110-127.
Al Sayed, C., Vinches, L., & Hallé, S. (2016). Towards optimizing a personal cooling garment for
hot and humid deep mining conditions. Open Journal of Optimization, 5(01), 35.
Alfano, F. R. D. A., Palella, B. I., & Riccio, G. (2011). Thermal environment assessment reliability
using temperature—humidity indices. Industrial health, 49(1), 95-106.
Alwakeel, M., & Shaaban, Z. (2010). Face recognition based on Haar wavelet transform and
principal component analysis via Levenberg-Marquardt backpropagation neural network.
European Journal of Scientific Research, 42(1), 25-31.
Arens, E. A., & Zhang, H. (2006). The skin's role in human thermoregulation and comfort. Center
for the Built Environment, 560-602.
Arens, E., Zhang, H., & Huizenga, C. (2006). Partial-and whole-body thermal sensation and
comfort—Part I: Uniform environmental conditions. Journal of Thermal Biology, 31(1), 53-59.
Belding, H. S. (1970). The search for a universal heat stress index. Physiological and behavioural
temperature regulation. IL: Springfield, 193-202.
Beshir, M., & Ramsey, J. D. (1988). Heat stress indices: a review paper. International Journal of
Industrial Ergonomics, 3(2), 89-102.
Blazejczyk, K., Epstein, Y., Jendritzky, G., Staiger, H., & Tinz, B. (2012). Comparison of UTCI to
selected thermal indices. International journal of biometeorology, 56(3), 515-535.
Botsford, J. H. (1971). A wet globe thermometer for environmental heat measurement. The
American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 32(1), 1-10.
Brake, D. (2002). Design of the world’s largest bulk air cooler for the Enterprise Mine in Northern
Australia. In Mine Ventilation: Proceedings of the North American/Ninth US Mine Ventilation
Symposium, 381-390.
Brake, D. (2008). Psychrometry, Mine Heat Loads, Mine Climatic and Cooling. Mine Ventilation
Australia, Brisbane, Australia.
Brake, D. J. (2001). The application of refrigeration in mechanised mines. In Proceedings of the
Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (Vol. 306, No. 1, pp. 1-10). Parkville, Vic.: The
Institute,[1990]-c2001.
Brake, D. J., & Bates, G. P. (1999, December). Criteria for the design of emergency refuge stations
for an underground metal mine. In AusIMM Proceedings (Vol. 304, No. 2, pp. 1-8). THE
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGY.
Brake, D. J., & Bates, G. P. (2002). Limiting metabolic rate (thermal work limit) as an index of
thermal stress. Applied occupational and environmental hygiene, 17(3), 176-186.
Brake, R., & Bates, G. (2002). A valid method for comparing rational and empirical heat stress
indices. Annals of occupational hygiene, 46(2), 165-174.
 131

Britain, G. and Samuel, H.L. (1907). Report of the Departmental Committee on Compensation for
Industrial Diseases [with Minutes of Evidence, Appendices, and Index], Printed for HM Stationery
by Wyman and Sons.
Budd, G. M. (2008). Wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT)—its history and its limitations. Journal
of Science and Medicine in Sport, 11(1), 20-32.
Bulcao, C. F., Frank, S. M., Raja, S. N., Tran, K. M., & Goldstein, D. S. (2000). Relative
contribution of core and skin temperatures to thermal comfort in humans. Journal of Thermal
Biology, 25(1), 147-150.
Büttner, K. (1954). Thermal Comfort as a Criterion for the Classification of Climates. In Recent
Studies in Bioclimatology (pp. 99-103). American Meteorological Society.
Cândido, C., De Dear, R. J., Lamberts, R., & Bittencourt, L. (2010). Air movement acceptability
limits and thermal comfort in Brazil's hot humid climate zone. Building and Environment, 45(1),
222-229.
Carpenter K., Roghanchi P. and Kocsis C., (2015). Understanding the Human Thermal Balance
and Heat Stress Indices as they apply to Deep and Hot US Mines, Proceedings of the 16th
U.S./North American Mine Ventilation Symposium, June 17 - 22, 2015, Blacksburg, Virginia,
USA pp. 15-20.
Cheng, Y., Niu, J., & Gao, N. (2012). Thermal comfort models: A review and numerical
investigation. Building and Environment, 47, 13-22.
Christensen, N. K, Albrechtsen, O., Fanger, P. O. Trzeciakiewicz, A. (1984). Air movement and
draught. In B. Berglund, T. Lindvall, J. Sundell (Eds.), Indoor Air. Proceedings of the 3rd
International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate (Vol. 5, pp. 301-308). Stockholm,
Sweden: Swedish Council for Building Research.
Coleman, P. J., & Kerkering, J. C. (2007). Measuring mining safety with injury statistics: Lost
workdays as indicators of risk. Journal of safety research, 38(5), 523-533.
Dan Foresee, F., & Hagan, M. T. (1997, June). Gauss-Newton approximation to Bayesian learning.
In International Conference on Neural Networks 3, 1930-1935.
Danko, G. (2013). Subsurface Flow and Transport Process Model for Time dependent Mine
Ventilation Simulations. Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, Mining Technology, 122 (3),
134-144.
Danko, G., Mousset-Jones, P. and McPherson, M., (1988). Sensitivity Analysis on Selected Input
Parameters for Mine Climate Simulation Programs, AIME/SME Transactions, Littletown,
Colorado, Reprint 88-159, 1-11.
De Freitas, C. R., & Grigorieva, E. A. (2015). A comprehensive catalogue and classification of
human thermal climate indices. International journal of biometeorology, 59(1), 109-120.
Dear, R. J., Ring, J. W., & Fanger, P. O. (1993). Thermal sensations resulting from sudden ambient
temperature changes. Indoor air, 3(3), 181-192.
Demuth, H. B., Beale, M. H., De Jess, O., & Hagan, M. T. (2014). Neural network design. Martin
Hagan.
 132

Ding, N., Benoit, C., Foggia, G., Bésanger, Y., & Wurtz, F. (2016). Neural network-based model
design for short-term load forecast in distribution systems. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems,
31(1), 72-81.
DOD, (1980). Occupational and environmental health: prevention, treatment, and control of heat
injury, Washington, DC: Departments of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.
DOD, (2003). Technical bulletin: heat stress control and heat casualty management, TB MED
507/AFPAM 48-152 (I). Washington, DC: Departments of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force.
Doherty, T., & Arens, E. A. (1988). Evaluation of the physiological bases of thermal comfort
models. ASHRAE transactions, 94.
Doucoure, B., Agbossou, K., & Cardenas, A. (2016). Time series prediction using artificial wavelet
neural network and multi-resolution analysis: Application to wind speed data. Renewable Energy,
92, 202-211.
Driscoll, D. M. (1992). Thermal comfort indexes. Current uses and abuses. Nat. Weather
Digest, 17(4), 33-38.
Epstein, Y., & Moran, D. S. (2006). Thermal comfort and the heat stress indices. Industrial health,
44(3), 388-398.
Fanger, P. O. (1970) Thermal comfort. Analysis and applications in environmental engineering,
Copenhagen: Danish Technical Press, McGraw-Hill.
Fanger, P. O., & Christensen, N. K. (1986). Perception of draught in ventilated
spaces. Ergonomics, 29(2), 215-235.
Fanger, P. O., & Pedersen, C. J. K. (1977). Discomfort due to air velocities in spaces.
In Proceedings of the Meeting of Commission B (Vol. 1, p. B2).
Fiala, D., Lomas, K. J., & Stohrer, M. (1999). A computer model of human thermoregulation for a
wide range of environmental conditions: the passive system. Journal of Applied Physiology, 87(5),
1957-1972.
Fiala, D., Psikuta, A., Jendritzky, G., Paulke, S., Nelson, D. A., van Marken Lichtenbelt, W. D., &
Frijns, A. J. (2010). Physiological modeling for technical, clinical and research applications. Front
Biosci S, 2, 939-968.
Fobelets, A. P. R. (1987). Subjective human response to low-level air currents and asymmetric
radiation. In ASHRAE transactions, 93, 497–523.
Fountain, M., & Arens, E. A. (1993). Air movement and thermal comfort. ASHRAE journal, 35(8).
Gagge, A. P. (1971). An effective temperature scale based on a simple model of human
physiological regulatory response. Ashrae Trans., 77, 247-262.
Gagge, A. P., & Nishi, Y. (1976). Physical indices of the thermal environment. ASHRAE J.;(United
States), 18(1).
Gagge, A. P., Fobelets, A. P., & Berglund, L. (1986). A standard predictive index of human
response to the thermal environment. ASHRAE Trans, 92, 709-31.
Givoni, B., & Goldman, R. F. (1971). Predicting metabolic energy cost. Journal of Applied
Physiology, 30(3), 429-433.
 133

Goldman R. F. (1970) .Standards for human exposure to heat. In: Environmental ergonomics,
Mekjavic IB, Banister EW, Morrison JB (Eds.). Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia, 99-138.
Graveling R. A., Morris L. A., Graves R. J. (1988). Working in hot conditions in mining: a literature
review. Inst. Occu. Med. (Edinburgh); HSE contract research report no. 10/1988.
Griefahn, B., Mehnert, P., BRÖDE, P., & FORSTHOFF, A. (1997). Working in moderate cold: a
possible risk to health. Journal of occupational health, 39(1), 36-44.
Hagan, M. T., & Menhaj, M. B. (1994). Training feedforward networks with the Marquardt
algorithm. IEEE transactions on Neural Networks, 5(6), 989-993.
Haldane, J. S. (1905). The influence of high air temperatures No. I. Journal of Hygiene, 5(04), 494-
513.
Hancock, P. A. (1986). Sustained attention under thermal stress. Psychological bulletin, 99(2), 263.
Handbook AF. (2007). American society of heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers.
Inc.: Atlanta; 2007.
Handbook AF. (2009). American society of heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers.
Inc.: Atlanta; 2009.
Hartman, H. L., Mutmansky, J. M., Ramani, R. V., Wang, Y.J. (2012). Mine ventilation and air
conditioning. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Havenith, G. (1985). Individual parameters in thermoregulatory control; a review. Report Institute
for Perception IZF, p. 26.
Holm, D., & Engelbrecht, F. A. (2005). Practical choice of thermal comfort scale and range in
naturally ventilated buildings in South Africa: technical paper. Journal of the South African
Institution of Civil Engineering, 47(2), 9-14.
Hong, T., Pinson, P., Fan, S., Zareipour, H., Troccoli, A., & Hyndman, R. J. (2016). Probabilistic
energy forecasting: Global energy forecasting competition 2014 and beyond.
Hooman, M., Webber-Youngman, R. C. W., du Plessis, J. J. L., & Marx, W. M. (2015). A decision
analysis guideline for underground bulk air heat exchanger design specifications. Journal of the
Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 115(2), 125-129.
Höppe, P. (1999). The physiological equivalent temperature–a universal index for the
biometeorological assessment of the thermal environment. International journal of
Biometeorology, 43(2), 71-75.
Houghton, F. C., & Yaglou, C. P. (1923). Determining equal comfort lines. J ASHVE, 29, 165-
176.
ISO 7730 (2005). Ergonomics of the thermal environment — Analytical determination and
interpretation of thermal comfort using calculation of the PMV and PPD indices and local thermal
comfort criteria.
ISO 7933 (1989). Hot environments - Analytical determination and interpretation of thermal stress
using calculation of required sweat rate.
ISO 7933 (2004). Ergonomics of the thermal environment - Analytical determination and
interpretation of heat stress using calculation of the predicted heat strain.
 134

ISO 7933, (2005). Ergonomics of the thermal environment - Analytical determination and
interpretation of heat stress using calculation of the predicted heat strain.
ISO 9920, (2007) Ergonomics of the thermal environment. Estimation of the thermal insulation and
evaporative resistance of a clothing ensemble. International Standardization Organization, Geneva.
Jacklitsch B., Musolin K., Kim J.H. (2016) Criteria for a recommended standard: occupational
exposure to heat and hot environments, Publication No. 2016-106, National Institute for
Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), US.
Jones, B. W. (1992). Transient interaction between the human and the thermal
environment. ASHRAE Trans., 98(1), 189-195.
Kamyar, A., Aminossadati, S. M., Leonardi, C., & Sasmito, A. (2016). Current Developments and
Challenges of Underground Mine Ventilation and Cooling Methods. Proceedings of the 16th Coal
Operators' Conference, Mining Engineering, University of Wollongong, 10-12 February 2016, 277-
287.
Karacan, C. Ö. (2007). Development and application of reservoir models and artificial neural
networks for optimizing ventilation air requirements in development mining of coal
seams. International Journal of Coal Geology, 72(3), 221-239.
Kenny, G. P., Stapleton, J., Lynn, A., Binder, K., Allen, C., & Hardcastle, S. G. (2009). Heat stress
in Canadian deep mechanized mines: Laboratory simulation of typical mining tasks performed in
varying environments. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Environmental
Ergonomics, Boston, USA, pp. 441-445.
Khodabandehlou, H., & Fadali, M. S. (2016, July). Networked control of unmanned vehicle using
wavelet-based generalized predictive controller. In Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2016 International
Joint Conference on 5226-5233. IEEE.
King, J. (2004). Thermoregulation: physiological responses and adaptations to exercise in hot and
cold environments. Journal of Hyperplasia Research, 4(3), 1.
Klemm, F. K., & Hall, J. F. (1972). Utility of heat stress indices and effect of humidity and
temperature on single physiologic strains. Journal of applied physiology, 33(4), 436-440.
Kocsis, C., & Hardcastle, S. G. (2010). Prediction and analysis of the underground climatic
conditions and their cause in deep mechanized Canadian metal mines. 13th US/North American
Mine Ventilation Symposium, 13-16.
Kurnia, J. C., Sasmito, A. P., & Mujumdar, A. S. (2014). Dust dispersion and management in
underground mining faces. International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, 24(1), 39-44.
Kyle, W. J. (1994, August). The human bioclimate of Hong Kong. In Proceedings of the
Contemporary Climatology Conference, Brno. TISK LITERA, Brno (pp. 345-50).
Lee, D. K. (1958). Proprioclimates of man and domestic animals. UNESCO Conf. 10. Paris: Arid
Zone Research Ser.1958; 102-125.
Loomis, I. M. (2004, May). Measurement of frictional pressure differentials during a ventilation
survey. In Mine Ventilation: Proceedings of the 10th US/North American Mine Ventilation
Symposium, Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 59-66.
MacKay, D. J. (1992). A practical Bayesian framework for backpropagation networks. Neural
computation, 4(3), 448-472.
 135

Mackay, L., Bluhm, S., and Van Rensburg, J. (2010). Refrigeration and cooling concepts for ultra-
deep platinum mining. The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, pp. 285-292.
MacPherson M. J. (2009). Subsurface ventilation engineering and, Mine Ventilation Services, Inc.,
Fresno; 2009.
Macpherson, R. K. (1962). The assessment of the thermal environment. A review. British journal
of industrial medicine, 19(3), 151-164.
Mairiaux, P., & Malchaire, J. (1995). Comparison and validation of heat stress indices in
experimental studies. Ergonomics, 38(1), 58-72.
Majidi, M., Fadali, M. S., Etezadi-Amoli, M., & Oskuoee, M. (2015). Partial discharge pattern
recognition via sparse representation and ANN. IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical
Insulation, 22(2), 1061-1070.
Malchaire, J., Kampmann, B., Havenith, G., Mehnert, P., & Gebhardt, H. J. (2000). Criteria for
estimating acceptable exposure times in hot working environments: a review. International archives
of occupational and environmental health, 73(4), 215-220.
Marquardt, D. W. (1963). An algorithm for least-squares estimation of nonlinear parameters.
Journal of the society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 11(2), 431-441.
Masterton, J. M., & Richardson, F. A. (1979). Humidex: a method of quantifying human discomfort
due to excessive heat and humidity (Internet). Canada: Ministere de l’Environnement; 1979.
McIntyre, D. A. (1979). The effect of air movement on thermal comfort and sensation.
Copenhagen: Indoor Climate, Danish Building Research Institute.
Mehnert, P., Malchaire, J., Kampmann, B., Piette, A., Griefahn, B., & Gebhardt, H. (2000).
Prediction of the average skin temperature in warm and hot environments. European journal of
applied physiology, 82(1), 52-60.
Donoghue, A. (2004). Heat illness in the US mining industry. American journal of industrial
medicine, 45(4), 351-356.
Minard, D., Belding, H. S., & Kingston, J. R. (1957). Prevention of heat casualties. Journal of the
American Medical Association, 165(14), 1813-1818.
Missenard, F. A. (1973) ‘Coefficient d'echange de chaleur du corps humain par convection, en
fontion de la position, de l'activite du sujet et de l'environment,’ Archives de Sciences
Physiologiques, 27(1), 45-50.
Morris LA, Graveling RA. (1986). Response to intermittent work in hot environments. Final report
on CEC Contract 7247/22/003. Edinburgh: Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM Report
TM/86/07); 1986.
Naish J, Court DS. Medical Sciences. 2nd ed. Saunders Elsevier. (UK); 2015. 840 p.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), 2000. Injuries, Illnesses, and
Hazardous Exposures in the Mining Industry, 1986–1995: A Surveillance Report. Washington DC.
Navy Environmental Health Center, (2007). Prevention and treatment of heat and cold stress
injuries. Technical Manual, NEHC-TM-OEM 6260.6A. Portsmouth, VA.
Nevins, R. G. (1971). Thermal comfort and draughts. Journal of Physiology, 3, 356–358.
 136

Pulket, C., Henschel, A., Burg, W. R., & Saltzman, B. E. (1980). A comparison of heat stress
indices in a hot-humid environment. The American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 41(6),
442-449.
Ramsden, R., Branch, A. R., & Wilson, R. (2007). Factors influencing the choice of cooling and
refrigeration systems for mines. Journal of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa, 60(3), 92-
98.
Roghanchi, P., Kocsis C., Sunkpal, M (2017), Sensitivity analysis of the effect of airflow velocity
on the thermal comfort in underground mines, Journal of Sustainable Mining (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsm.2017.03.005
Roghanchi, P., Sunkpal, M., and Kocsis, C. 2015. Understanding the Human Thermal Balance and
Heat Stress Indices as They Apply to Deep and Hot US Mines, Proceedings of 15th Northern
American Mine Ventilation Symposium, Blacksburg VA, Jun 20-25 2015, pp. 1-6.
Rohles, F. H., Konz, S. A., & Jones, B. W. (1983). eiIin Fans Extenders of the Summer Comfort
Envelope. ASHRAE Trans, 89, 245-263.
Ruiz, L. G. B., Cuéllar, M. P., Calvo-Flores, M. D., & Jiménez, M. D. C. P. (2016). An Application
of Non-Linear Autoregressive Neural Networks to Predict Energy Consumption in Public
Buildings. Energies, 9(9), 684-709.
Saleh, J. H., & Cummings, A. M. (2011). Safety in the mining industry and the unfinished legacy
of mining accidents: safety levers and defense-in-depth for addressing mining hazards. Safety
science, 49(6), 764-777.
Shapiro, Y., & Epstein, Y. (1984). Environmental physiology and indoor climate—
thermoregulation and thermal comfort. Energy and buildings, 7(1), 29-34.
Sheer, T. J., Butterworth, M. D., & Ramsden, R. (2001). Ice as a coolant for deep mines.
In Proceedings of the 7th international mine ventilation congress (pp. 355-361).
Sohar, E., Tennenbaum, J., & Robinson, N. (1962). A comparison of the cumulative discomfort
index (Cum DI) and cumulative effective temperature (Cum ET), as obtained by meteorological
data. Biometeorology, Tromp SW (Ed.), 395-400.
Spain R. S. (1984). Energy savings in buildings using fans and allowing floating temperatures in
rooms. Ph.D. Dissertation, Texas A&M University. Geneva.
Stroh, R. (1979). A note on the downcast shaft as a thermal flywheel. Journal of the Mine
Ventilation Society of South Africa, 32, 77-80.
Sunkpal M. ( 2015). Assessing thermal comfort in deep underground mines. Master’s Thesis,
University of Nevada, Reno, NV.
Thom, E. C. (1959). The discomfort index. Weatherwise, 12(2), 57-61.
Ticknor, J. L. (2013). A Bayesian regularized artificial neural network for stock market forecasting.
Expert Systems with Applications, 40(14), 5501-5506.
Toftum, J. (2002). Human response to combined indoor environment exposures. Energy and
Buildings, 34(6), 601-606.
Webber, R. C. W., Franz, R. M., Marx, W. M., & Schutte, P. C. (2003). A review of local and
international heat stress indices, standards and limits with reference to ultra-deep mining. Journal-
South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, 103(5), 313-324.
 137

Xiang, J., Bi, P., Pisaniello, D., & Hansen, A. (2014). The impact of heatwaves on workers‫ ׳‬health
and safety in Adelaide, South Australia. Environmental research, 133, 90-95.
Xiaojie, Y., Qiaoyun, H., Jiewen, P., Xiaowei, S., Dinggui, H., & Chao, L. (2011). Progress of heat-
hazard treatment in deep mines. Mining Science and Technology (China), 21(2), 295-299.
Zhang, H. 2003. Human thermal sensation and comfort in transient and non-uniform thermal
environments, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California Berkeley, CA.
Zhang, H., Arens, E., Huizenga, C., & Han, T. (2010). Thermal sensation and comfort models for
non-uniform and transient environments: Part I: Local sensation of individual body parts. Building
and Environment, 45(2), 380-388.
Zhou, G. (1999). Human perception of air movement: Impact of frequency and airflow direction
on sensation of draught. Ph.D. Thesis. Kongens Lyngby: Technical University of Denmark.
Zuhairy, A. A., & Sayigh, A. A. M. (1993). The development of the bioclimatic concept in building
design. Renewable energy, 3(4-5), 521-533.

View publication stats