In 2004, SRK’s ventilation team assisted site engineers at the Deer Creek Mine located near Huntington, Utah with the ventilation planning required to exploit a remote area of the mine’s reserves. This new district was located under an area of high terrain which would not allow for the construction of an additional shaft or portal access near the proposed longwall panels. With this constraint, along with the desire to maintain a two-entry gate road system and the projected condition of frequent coal wash outs, a new ventilation plan was established.
To develop the new ventilation plan a significant program of ventilation modeling was initiated. Different options were examined that included; increasing the current exhaust fan power, adding another exhaust fan installation, converting the ventilation fans in the active portion of the mine to a forcing system, and modifying the ventilation system in the active area of the mine to a push-pull system. The push-pull ventilation system was ultimately selected.
In order to achieve the necessary ventilation plan a modified push-pull ventilation system was designed that required two additional 1,490 kW (2,000 hp) fans to be installed. In addition to the installation of the two new fresh air fans, a cut sheet of required system modifications, bulkheads, air door reversals, isolation doors, regulator settings and high leakage areas were developed.
All network modeling was accomplished with a correlated network model based on a five-day full pressure-quantity ventilation survey. Following the transition to the new push-pull ventilation system an update survey was done to compare the proposed system with the actual installed/developed ventilation system, and to re-establish new leakage rates for the rebuilt stopping lines and fan operating points.
In order to develop the new ventilation plan so that the mine could access the new remote area a significant modeling program was required. The models proved valuable when describing the attributes of the new push-pull ventilation system to the site engineers, corporate managers, and government regulators. Fan specifications for the new forcing fans and setpoints for then existing fans and regulators were compiled. The new fans were installed, and the system performed as projected.
