Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245

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Process Safety and Environmental Protection

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psep

CFD-based optimization of the installation location of the

wall-mounted air duct in a fully mechanized excavation face
Pengfei Wang a,c,∗ , Runze Gao a,b , Ronghua Liu a,b , Fuqiang Yang c
a
School of Resource, Environment & Safety Engineering, Hunan University of Science & Technology, Xiangtan, 411201, China
b
Work Safety Key Lab on Prevention and Control of Gas and Roof Disasters for Southern Coal Mines, Hunan University of Science & Technology, Xiangtan,
411201, China
c
College of Environment and Resources, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, 350116, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As a novel ventilation method for fully mechanized excavation face, i.e., wall-mounted air duct, has out-
Received 26 February 2020 standing advantages in solving the problems of dust pollution and gas overrun. In order to decide the
Received in revised form 10 April 2020 best installation location of the wall-mounted air duct, a physical model was developed proportional to
Accepted 30 April 2020
the dimensions of C103 fully mechanized excavation face of the Nahe Coal Mine of the Bai Coal Group
Available online 23 May 2020
in Baise, Guangxi Province. The CFD numerical method was used to analyze the air flow field, dust con-
centration distribution and gas diffusion of the excavation face when the wall-mounted air duct was
Keywords:
installed at different positions. The results showed that the dust and gas control effect in the fully mech-
fully mechanized excavation face
wall-mounted air duct
anized excavation face was highly dependent on the installation location of the wall-mounted air duct.
installation location When the wall-mounted air duct was installed farther away from the working face, on the one hand, the
numerical model wind curtain moved backward and the dust control effect was poorer; on the other hand, the gas was
dust diffused to a larger distance and the concentration of gas in front of the working face was lower. For the
gas investigated fully mechanized excavation face, the reasonable installation distance of the wall-mounted
air duct should be 9.6 m. At this installation distance, the concentration of gas on the working face roof
was 0.65%, and the concentration of dusts around the roadheader’s driver was 59 mg/m3 .
© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Coal is one of the three major energy sources in the world and
is vital to the national economic and social development (Bao et al.,
2019; Liu et al., 2018a; Wang et al., 2019a, 2019b). The mining and
transportation of coal generate a large amount of dusts (Ren et al.,
2019; Wu et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020). The
suspended dusts in the working space are hazardous to the health
of workers (Wang et al., 2019c, 2019d, 2019e; Zhou et al., 2019a,
2019b; Han et al., 2020a). By the end of 2018, China had reported
more than 976,000 cases of occupational diseases, of which nearly
90% were pneumoconiosis cases (Han et al., 2020b; Zhou et al.,
2020a, 2020b). In addition, gas is also generated during coal mining
operations. When the gas reaches a certain concentration in the air,
it can potentially cause explosion (Liu et al., 2018b., Shi et al., 2019).
In recent years, with the development of working depth and mech-
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: pfwang@sina.cn (P. Wang).
anization technique, the disasters from dusts and gas have become
more prominent, which seriously affects the safe and efficient min-
ing of coal mines (Amyotte et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2018; Hua et al.,
2018; Zhang et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2019c).
In order to enhance the working condition in mines, some schol-
ars have proposed a hybrid ventilation method, which is considered
to be able to provide a better ventilation effect (Wang et al., 2019f;
Xu et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2019a). Common hybrid ventilation
can be divided into different categories, i.e., long-pressure short-
exhaust ventilation, short-pressure long-exhaust ventilation, etc
(Wang et al., 2002; Hua et al., 2018). Jiang et al. (2015) numeri-
cally analyzed different types of ventilation systems, and revealed
that the dust removal efficiency of long pressure and short pump-
ing was 30%-50% higher than that of blowing ventilation. However,
it has the following disadvantages: 1) Under the driving force
of high-speed air flow from the air compressor, the dusts at the
tunneling end diffuse towards the driver, causing the concentra-
tion of dusts around the driver much higher than the limit; 2)
The air volume of the roadway in the overlapped area of the air
pressure cylinder and the air suction cylinder is low, which may

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2020.04.049
0957-5820/© 2020 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245
cause the gas to be accumulated on the roof of the roadway and
potentially result in an explosion (Zhou et al., 2019d, 2020c). For
addressing the above issues, western scholars first proposed to
install wall-mounted air duct in traditional long-pressure short-
exhaust ventilation. Blowing ventilation, exhaust ventilation, and
traditional hybrid ventilation all provide vertical ventilation in the
roadway, while the swirling ventilation of the wall-mounted air
duct provides horizontal ventilation in the roadway. When the
wall-mounted air duct was installed, an air curtain can be formed
in the roadway to prevent dusts dispersing towards the road-
header’s driver. At the same time, the rotating airflow from the
wall-mounted air duct can improve the dissipation of the gas and
control the concentration of gas in the working face within the limit
(Nie et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2019).
As early as the 1990s, wall-mounted air ducts were widely used
in coal mines in some western countries. At the same time, China
had made significant progress in developing wall-mounted air
ducts (Korecki and Skoczynski, 1986; Liu et al., 2018c; Wang et al.,
2002). In Germany, through the application of the wall-mounted
air duct, the straight wind in the roadway was turned into a spiral
air flow to form a curtain. The air curtain formed by the spiral air
flow shielded dusts within a certain range of the excavation face,
and then the collected dust-containing airflow was removed by a
fan (Coanda, 1910). In Poland, the wall-mounted air duct and the
dust collector were combined to achieve good results in improving
the ability to control the air flow in the roadway. Aminossadati and
Hooman (2008) numerically simulated the structure of the airflow
from the wall-mounted air duct under varying working conditions,
and obtained instructive results. Wang (1996) tested the maximum
concentration, minimum concentration, and average concentration
of dusts at the positions of the roadheaders before and after the
installation of wall-mounted ducts in 4 coal mines. The test results
showed that the dust removal rate reached 92%. Cheng et al. (2011)
numerically simulated the swirling air curtain in the excavation
face, and obtained the concentration distribution of dusts. From
the results, in this type of ventilation, a radial swirling air flow
was formed to block the roadway, and a dust suppression curtain
pointing towards the tunneling end was also formed in front of the
driver. As a result, the concentration of dusts around the driver’s
was greatly decreased, and the dust-reduction efficiency of 81.72%
was achieved. Li et al. (2020) numerically simulated the airflow flow
field, diffusion pattern of dusts, and concentration distribution of
gas for this type of ventilation method under varying axial-radial air
flow ratios. From the results, at higher axial-radial air flow ratio, the
flow field at the excavation end experienced a larger disturbance
and the dust control effect was lower; meanwhile, the capability
of the air flow to dilute the gas concentration around the work-
ing face was improved, and the gas control effect was enhanced. In
addition, Nie et al. (2017) and Zhou et al. (2017) have developed
the wall-mounted air ducts with light weight and high flexibil-
ity, respectively. Both types of air ducts have been applied to the
fully mechanized excavation face and greatly enhanced the dust
reduction effects.
In the fully mechanized excavation face, the effect of the wall-
mounted swirling ventilation was highly dependent on where
the wall-mounted air duct is installed. In the previous literature,
only few studies focused on the installation location of the wall-
mounted air duct. In addition, the existing studies only considered
the dust control but not included any analysis on gas diffusion. In
this study, fluid simulation technology was applied to investigate
the impact of the installation location of the wall-mounted air duct
on the air flow field, dust concentration distribution, and gas diffu-
sion on the excavation face. The optimal installation distance was
obtained, which can provide design basis and theoretical reference
for the application of this type of ventilation method in sites.
235
2. Establish of simulation model
In this study, the C103 fully mechanized excavation face in Nahe
Coal Mine was used as the research object. Nahe Coal Mine belongs
to Bai Mining Group in Baise of Guangxi Autonomous Region. The
roadway of the C013 fully mechanized excavation face is 4.5 m long
and 3.2 m wide. The model of the roadheader is EBZ230. Accord-
ing to the measurement data in daily production, the average dust
concentration in the working face is about 900 mg/m3 , and the
maximum relative amount of exhaust gas is 3.63 m3 /t.
2.1. Physical model
A numerical calculation physical model was constructed accord-
ing to the roadway 30 m ahead of the excavation face using a
geometric ratio of 1:1. At the same time, equipment such as air
ducts, roadheaders, and conveyor belts were established according
to the actual conditions of the site. The numerical calculation phys-
ical model is shown in Fig. 1. In this study, the installation distance
of the wall-mounted air duct, D, was defined as the distance from
the first strip-shaped tuyere to the tunneling end. The strip-shaped
tuyere had the width of 0.06 m. A total of six installation positions
were selected in this study, i.e., 7.6 m, 8.6 m, 9.6 m, 10.6 m, 11.6 m,
and 12.6 m.
ANSYS Meshing was used to mesh the above physical model.
The Physics Preference in Meshing was set to CFD and the Solver
Preference was set to Fluent. The global mesh size is 0.3 m. At the
same time, the mesh size of 0.02 m was used for bar-shaped air
outlets, and the mesh size of 0.05 m was used for the air outlets and
exhaust vents of the air duct. In ANSYS Meshing, Element Metrics
can be used as a standard to assess the mesh. The range of Element
Metrics is 0-1. A value Element Metrics closer to 1 indicates a higher
mesh quality (Akhshik et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2018; Camelli et al.,
2014; Nakayama et al., 1996; Yin et al., 2019a, 2019b). From Fig. 2,
the Element Metrics values corresponding to the model grid are
mostly distributed between 0.4-0.95, which proves that the mesh
quality is good and can meet the basic requirements of this CFD
simulation calculation.
2.2. Grid independence verification
In order to ensure the irrelevance between the simulation
results and the number of grids used in the simulation, grid inde-
pendence verification is required. The main focus of this simulation
is the diffusion of pollutants at different installation distances, so
the dust concentration at the driver’s position(3 m, 5 m, 1.6 m)
of the roadheader can be selected for independent verification.The
results are shown in Fig. 3.
It can be seen from Fig. 3 that when the number of grids
increased from 500,000 to 3 million, the dust concentration at the
driver gradually stabilized. When the number of grids increased to
1 million, the number of grids had little effect on the results. In
order to ensure the accuracy of the simulation results and higher
calculation efficiency, it can be considered that when the number
of grids reaches 1 million, the simulation results are independent
of the number of grids, so 1.07 million is taken as the number of
calculation grids.
2.3. Boundary conditions and parameter settings
According to the actual production conditions at the coal mine
site, the air flow rates in the pressure cylinder and suction cylinder
were controlled to be 200 m3 /min and 250 m3 /min, respectively.
At the same time, according to the previous research results, the
pressure-exhaust air volume ratio of the air suction cylinder was
set to 8:10 and the axial-radial air flow ratio was set to 2:8. In Fluent
simulation software, the air inlet, as well as the axial air outlet and
236 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245

Fig. 1. The physical model of fully mechanized excavation face used in numerical simulation.

Fig. 2. The quantity distribution of mesh quality of the computation mode.

Fig. 3. The results of Grid independence verification.

the strip-shaped tuyere of the pressure cylinder were all set as the
inlet boundary conditions for the speed. The inlet boundary of each
speed was calculated according to the air volume. The speed of the
suction cylinder was set to 8.29 m/s, the speed of the axial air inlet
at the front end of the pressure cylinder was set to 5.31 m/s, and the
speed of the three stripe-shaped air outlets was set to 9.26 m/s. The
parameters of the dust source, including generation rate and size
pattern of particles were determined by the measurement in the
field and additional analysis in laboratory. The release amount of
gas was set according to the geological data provided by the mine.
The specific parameter settings are shown in Table 2.
2.4. Mathematical model
When the wall-mounted air duct was installed at varying
locations in the fully mechanized excavation face, ANSYS Fluent
 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245 237

software was used to analyze the characteristics of wall-mounted of classical mechanics and are expressed by the following equations
swirling ventilation system, including the features of airflow field, for each of the discrete particles carried by a turbulent flow (Minier,
distribution of dusts, and dispersion pattern of gas. The airflow 2015; Salehi et al., 2017).
had a continuous phase and was expressed with the Realizable k-␧
model in the Euler coordinate system. Meanwhile, the dust particles dxp
= Up (5)
had a discrete phase and were expressed with the discrete phase dt
model (DPM) in the Lagrange coordinate system. In addition, the dUp
diffusion of gas was analyzed using a component transport model mp = Ff →p + Fext (6)
dt
(Yu et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2019b;
Xu et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2020). where xp is the location of the particle center of mass, Up its
(1) Airflow motion equation velocity and mp the mass of the particle. Ff/p represents the forces
By analyzing wall-attached swirling ventilation airflow field in exerted by the fluid on the particle and Fext the forces due to exter-
the fully mechanized excavation face, it can be found that cylin- nal fields such as gravity.
drical jet was ejected from the front end of the air supply cylinder. The particle momentum equation can be written as:
Meanwhile, airflow was ejected from the strip-shaped air-out slits,
dUp dp3 DUsV dP3
 2
1 dp  
then rotated because of wall attachment effect, and finally did heli- mp = f + p − f g + fCD UsS − UP  ×
cal motion under the action of the suction airflow on the front dt 6 Dt 6 2 4


end. According to the related literatures, Realizablek-␧ model can
 dp3 DUsV dUp
accurately predict the divergence ratio of the cylindrical jet and it UsS − Up + fCA −
6 Dt dt
has been used to describe uniform shear flow with the rotating,
(7)
free flow of the mixed-flow and boundary layer flow effectively.
Therefore, this study selected Realizable k-␧ for describing airflow
motion. where D/Dt refers to the derivative along a fluid particle trajec-
The transfer equation of the Realizable k-␧ model can be tory
described as follows (Sun et al., 2018; Han et al., 2020c; Xiu et al.,
2019, 2020): D ∂ ∂
  = + Uf,k (8)
∂ ∂ ∂

t ∂k
Dt ∂t ∂xk
(k) + (kuj ) = +
∂t ∂xj ∂xj k ∂xj This form is derived for particles with diameters dp ∼ K where
K is the Kolmogorov length scale which represents the smallest
+ Gk + Gb − ε − YM (1)
length scale for fluid motions in a turbulent flow. Unless explicitly
mentioned otherwise for some applications, we mainly consider
  ∂ε  spherical particles throughout this work. In Eq. (7),p is the particle
∂ ∂ ∂ t
density while UsS and UsV stand for the fluid velocities averaged over
(ε) + (εuj ) = +
∂t ∂xj ∂xj ε ∂xj the surface SP and the volume p of the particle respectively.
ε2 ε 
+ C1 Sε − C2 √ + C1ε C3ε Gb + Sε s (2) 1
k + ε k UsS = Uf (t, rs ) drs (9)
Sp Sp
 
  
where C1 = max 0.43, +5 ,  = S kε , S = 2Sij Sij , Gk represents
1
the turbulent flow energy caused by the average velocity gradient, UsV = Uf (t, rs ) dr (10)
p p
Gb represents the turbulent flow energy due to buoyancy, YM repre-
sents the contribution of the wave expansion to the total dissipation
For small particles (say dp K ), the particle momentum equa-
rate in the compressible turbulence, C1␧ and C2 are constants,  k
tion can be safely neglected and the usual form of the particle
and  ␧ are the turbulent Prandtl numbers of k and ␧, respectively.
momentum equation is obtained as
Sk and S␧ are user-defined source terms. C1␧ , C2 ,  k and  ␧ are the
default constants (C1␧ is 1.44, C2 is 1.9, ␴k is 1.0, and ␴␧ is 1.2) dUp dp3 DU s dP3
 2
1 dp  
(Camelli et al., 2014). mp = f + p − f g + fCD U s − UP  ×
dt 6 Dt 6 2 4
Vortex viscosity can be obtained from the following equation:


 dp3 DU s dUp
k2 U s − Up + fCA −
t = C (3) 6 Dt dt
ε
(11)
where C can be obtained from the following equation:
1
C = ∗ (4) (3) Component transport model
A0 + AS kUε The conservation equations for gas and air chemicals are:

∂
 
where U ∗ = ˜ ij ˝
Sij + Sij + ˝ ˜ ij = ˝ij − 2εijk ωk , ˝ij = ˝
˜ ij , ˝ ¯ ij − →
(ωi ) + ∇  u ωi = ∇ Ji + Ri + Si (12)
¯ ij is the average value of the angular velocity tensor ωk , t
εijk ωk , ˝
which was observed in a moving coordinate system.A √ 0 and AS are where ωi is the mass fraction of the substance, Ji is the diffu-
two constants of the model (A0 = 4.04, As = 6 cos 
, where ϕ= sion flux of the substance, which is generated by the concentration
1

√  S S S  ∂uj ∂u gradient. Ri is the net production rate of the chemical reaction, Si
3
arccos 6W , W = ij jk3 ki , S̃ = Sij Sij and Sij = 12 + i .
∂xi ∂xj
S̃ is the additional generation rate from the discrete phase and the
(2) Dust particle motion equation defined source. This study had the assumption that only the mix-
Adopting a Lagrangian point of view, the governing equations for ing between substances was present. Thus, both Ri and Si are set to
particle dynamics are obtained by applying the fundamental laws 0.
238 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245
Fig. 4. The layout of experimental model: (a) diagram of the model; and (b) photograph of the model.
Fig. 5. PIV system and arrangement of the test cross-section: (a) PIV system; and (b) the representative plane.
3. Verification of model validity
3.1. Model roadway
The experimental model was developed with a geometric ratio
of 1:8. The roadway model was 400 mm high, 562.5 mm wide
and 4000 mm long. The plexiglass with a thickness of 6 mm was
used to construct the model. There were a pressure cylinder, a suc-
tion cylinder, a roadheader, conveyor belts, a dust collector, an
exhaust fan and a blower in the roadway. The pressure cylinder
was arranged at the upper part of the edge inside the roadway. The
height of the pressure cylinder center was 337.5 mm. The center
height of the suction cylinder was 200 mm. The pressure cylin-
der and suction cylinder both had the diameter of 100 mm. The
experimental model and internal layout are shown in Fig. 4.
3.2. Experimental equipment and scheme
The Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system from LaVision,
Germany was used to measure the flow field inside the roadway. In
order to evaluate the validity of the model to simulate the air flow
field, the results from both the measurement and the simulation
result were compared. The principle of PIV velocimetry is to mea-
sure the transient velocity distribution of the flow field indirectly by
measuring the displacement of the tracer particles within a known
short time interval. When the flow rate was measured with the PIV
technique, it was necessary to uniformly spread the tracer parti-
cles with good followability, good reflectivity, and similar gravity
to the fluid, into the flow field. The CCD camera was used to record
the image of the particles during the two exposures of the pulsed
laser. The recorded image was processed divided into many small
areas, which were called interrogation areas. Then the amplitude
and direction of the particle displacement in the interrogation areas
was obtained using autocorrelation or cross-correlation statistical
technique. Finally, the displacement data were averaged across all
interrogation areas to and a velocity vector field was obtained.
In this experiment, a representative plane (EFGH) was selected
to verify the flow field. The PIV experimental system and the cross-
section in the flow field test are shown in Fig. 5. The ratio of
the experimental model to the on-site airflow speed of the full-
mechanized excavation face was set to be 1:1. The air flow rates of
the pressure cylinder and the suction cylinder were adjusted to 200
m3 /min and 250 m3 /min through changing the frequency converter
of the fan, respectively. In addition, through the adjustment of the
flow valve, the axial-radial air flow ratios of the pressure cylinder
were 2:8.
At this stage, there are only few studies on the similarity criteria
of pollutant diffusion. Thus it is impossible to obtain the accurate
relationship between the laboratory model and the on-site pollu-
tant diffusion behavior (Jiang, 1993; Tan et al., 2015). Therefore, the
similarity was verified using the distribution of gas and dust in the
roadway. Dusts were generated using German AG420 aerosol gen-
erator and fed into the working surface from the round hole located
at the tunneling end to mimic the production of dusts by the road-
header in the fully-mechanized excavation face. Six dust sampling
points were placed in the model roadway with equal intervals along
the length of the roadway, and the FCC-25 explosion-proof dust
sampler was utilized to measure the dust concentration in the air
flow. In the verification experiments for gas concentration, there
were three sampling points in the height and length directions of
the roadway. In order to mimic the gas release, the gas was evenly
generated from the round hole into the model roadway at a rate of
2 L/min. The gas was sampled by a gas sampler and collected in an
air bag. A chromatographic analyzer was utilized to detect the con-
centration of gas in the collected sample. The specific coordinates
of the sampling points are shown in Table 1.
3.3. Verification results and analyses
3.3.1. Airflow field
The velocity vector diagram of the flow field in the test surface
can be obtained from both simulation and experiment, as shown in
Fig. 6. The pressure air cylinder is abbreviated as FAC, the exhaust
air cylinder is abbreviated as EAC, and the conveyor belt are shown
as white bars. The same abbreviations and symbols are used in the
following sections of this paper.
Based on the comparison of the velocity vector diagram in Fig. 6,
for the selected test surface, the structure and velocity of the flow
 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245 239

Fig. 6. The velocity vectors of the test surface: (a) numerical simulation results; and (b) PIV results.

Table 1
The settings of main boundary condition parameters of dust source and gas source.

Project Parameter Definition Parameter Value

Injection Type Surface

Inert Particle Anthracite
Diameter Distribution Rosin-Rammler
Minimum Diameter (m) 1×e- 6
DPM Injection
Average Diameter (m) 1.25×e-5
Properties
Maximum Diameter (m) 6×e- 5
Spreading Parameter 1.77
Total Flow Rate (kg/s) 0.0015
Turbulent Dispersion Stochastic Tracking
Species Transport ON
Inlet Diffusion ON
Species Model Diffusion Energy Source ON
Mixture Material Methane-air
Mass-Flow Inlet 0.0327 kg/s
Fig. 7. The comparison results of the airflow velocity at the measured points.

field obtained by numerical calculation are basically consistent
with the measured results in PIV experiments. Four measurement
points, i.e., A, B, C, and D on the test surface were selected for specific
velocity analysis. The test results at these four points were com-
pared with the results from the numerical model at corresponding
points. The validity can be considered to be verified if the average
error was less than 10%. Fig. 7 compares the airflow velocity results
from the PIV experiment and the numerical simulation. From Fig. 7,
the numerical simulation and the PIV test results basically matched,
the magnitude of the air flow velocity was almost identical with the
average relative error of 6.75%, which was smaller than 10%. Thus,
the feasibility of the developed model to simulate the air flow field
in fully mechanized excavation face was demonstrated.
3.3.2. Pollutant distribution
The concentration distribution of dusts from both numerical
analysis and model experiments are shown in Fig. 8. From the fig-
ure, although the simulation results and the verification results had
divergence in absolute values, the overall trends in both simula-
tion and experiments were basically the same. Due to the effect

Table 2
The locations of the sampling points in the verification experiment.

Measurement points
Project
NO. experimental model simulation

D1 (0.4575 m, 0.205 m, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 1.64 m, 0.80 m)

D2 (0.4575 m, 0.815 m, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 6.52 m, 0.80 m)
The measuring point of dust mass D3 (0.4575 m, 1.425 m, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 11.40 m, 0.80 m)
concentration D4 (0.4575 m, 2.035 m, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 16.28 m, 0.80 m)
D5 (0.457. m, 2.645 m, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 21.16 m, 0.80 m)
D6 (0.4575 m, 3.255, 0.1 m) (3.66 m, 26.04 m, 0.80 m)
M1 (0.28 m, 0.05 m, 0.025 m) (2.24 m, 0.40 m, 0.20 m)
M2 (0.28 m, 0.05 m, 0.2 m) (2.24 m, 0.40 m, 1.60 m)
The measuring point of gas M3 (0.28 m, 0.05 m, 0.375 m) (2.24 m, 0.40 m, 3.00 m)
concentration M4 (0.28 m, 0.50 m, 0.375 m) (2.24 m, 4.00 m, 3.00 m)
M5 (0.28 m, 1 m, 0.375 m) (2.24 m, 8.00 m, 3.00 m)
M6 (0.28 m, 1.5 m, 0.375 m) (2.24 m, 12.0 m, 3.0 m)
240 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245
Fig. 8. The concentration distribution curves of dusts.
of the all-mounted swirling ventilation, most dusts were concen-
trated at the tunneling end. With the increase in the distance from
the tunneling end, the concentration of dusts first decreased and
eventually stabilized.
Fig. 9 shows the gas concentration distribution. From both the
simulation results and the experimental results, the gas concen-
tration increased with height. This is mainly because the density
of gas was smaller than the air, thus is easy to accumulate on the
roof. This result is in line with the actual situation on site. From the
above analysis results, the numerical calculation model established
in this study had high feasibility in studying the flow field and the
distribution pattern of pollutants in the roadway. The numerical
calculation results can provide guide for the site pollution control
in the fully-mechanized excavation face to some extent.
4. Numerical simulation
The ANYSY Fluent software was used to simulate the charac-
teristics of the flow field, the distribution of dusts, and the gas
migration pattern when the wall-mounted air duct was installed
at varying positions. In the air flow field characteristics analysis,
the structure of the flow field was mainly investigated; in the anal-
ysis on the dust distribution, the area around the driver 5 m away
from the working face was studied; in the gas migration law anal-
ysis, the gas concentration in the excavation face was compared
with the limit.
4.1. Simulation results
4.1.1. Air flow field
ANYSY Fluent was utilized to calculate the air flow field at six
installation distances of wall-mounted air duct (D1 = 7.6 m, D2 =
8.6 m, D3 = 9.6 m, D4 = 10.6 m, D5 = 11.6 m, D6 = 12.6 m). A three-
dimensional flow field structure diagram is shown in Fig. 10.
From Fig. 10, after the air flow is ejected from the strip-shaped
tuyere, a rotating air curtain is formed in the roadway under the
effect of the wall-mounted effect. At the same time, the amount
of air supply is less than the amount of air suction. Due to the
Fig. 9. The distribution histograms of gas concentration.
negative pressure, the rotating air curtain continuously advances
towards the tunneling end, forming a wind wall. The wind wall
moves oppositely to the diffusion direction of dusts. Thus the dusts
can be controlled in the limited area around the working face, and
the driver of the roadheader is always in the fresh air flow sent
from the rear end. Therefore, the concentration of dusts around the
driver was greatly smaller, which was beneficial to the physical and
mental health of the staff and provided a solid guarantee for the safe
production of the mine.
Starting from the cross section at the driver’s location, a plane
was taken every 0.8 m for the flow field statistical analysis. A total of
three equidistant planes were obtained. Using the speed measure-
ment function in ANYSY Fluent, the average wind speed of the three
planes was obtained for each installation distance. The results are
shown in Fig. 11. From the figure, as the installation distance con-
tinues to increase, the average wind speed of is gradually decreased.
This is because at a farther installation distance, the wind curtain
formed by the wall-mounted swirling flow was closer to the rare,
and the travel distance of the air low towards the driver was longer,
more wind energy was dissipated, thus the wind speed at the cross
section was gradually decreased.
4.1.2. Dust concentration distribution
The dust concentration distribution of the roadway was sim-
ulated and analyzed under six different installation distances. The
concentration distribution of dusts around the driver was obtained,
as shown in Fig. 12.
From the simulation results of the flow field in 4.2.1, when the
distance between the installation location of the wall-mounted air
duct and the tunneling end was smaller, the generated rotating air
curtain also moved closer to the working face. Due to the presence
of the air curtain, dusts were blocked within a limited area ahead
of the working face and removed by the suction cylinder under the
negative pressure. With the increase of the distance from the wall-
mounted air duct to the working face, the air curtain was closer to
the rare of the roadway, and the average wind speed in the sec-
tion got lower. In this condition, the dust diffused to the rear, and
the concentration of dusts around the driver was much higher, as
shown in Fig. 12. It shows that when the wall-mounted air duct was
installed farther than 9.6 m from the working face, the dust barrier
effect was reduced because the generated air curtain was located
at the rare area, and the dusts was diffused to a further distance.
In this case, the concentration of dusts around the driver was high,
thus the safe operation environment of the driver was seriously
affected.
In order to more accurately analyze the dust isolation effect of
the wall-mounted air duct at different installation positions, the
dust concentrations in two sections, i.e., located at 1.5 m and 5.0
m (driver’s position) from the tunneling end. Then the calculation
results were post-processed using CFD-POST to calculate the con-
 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245 241

Fig. 10. The three-dimensional streamline diagram of airflow field in roadway at six different installation distances: (a) D = 7.6 m; (b) D = 8.6 m; (c) D = 9.6 m; (d) D = 10.6
m; (e) D = 11.6 m; and (f) D = 12.6 m.

Fig. 11. The relationship between average wind speed and installation distance.
242 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245

Fig. 12. The concentration distribution of dusts around the driver: (a) D = 7.6 m; (b) D = 8.6 m; (c) D = 9.6 m; (d) D = 10.6 m; (e) D = 11.6 m; and (f) D = 12.6 m.

Fig. 13. The dust-isolation efficiencies under different installation positions.

centrations of total dusts and respiratory dusts, as well as analyze
the dust isolation efficiency under different working conditions.
The results are shown in Fig. 13.
From Fig. 13, the wall-mounted swirling ventilation in all the
six installation positions shows a certain barrier effect on dust. It
can also be found from the figure that, as a whole, the barrier effi-
ciency of the air curtain for the respiratory dust is higher than that
for the total dust. The reason is that the mass of the respirable dust
is small, thus its motion trajectory is obviously disturbed by the
air flow. The rotating wind curtain can block most of the respirable
dusts at a position closer to the tunneling end. In contrast, dusts
with a larger particle size have a relatively large mass and have a
strong penetrating ability, and some of the dust can pass through
the air curtain to the driver’s location. In addition, from Fig.13, as
the installation distance increases, the dust isolation efficiency of
the air curtain decreases. Meanwhile, when D = 7.6 m, 8.6 m, and
9.6 m, the change of dust isolation efficiency was not very obvi-
ous; when the installation distance was enlarged to 10.6 m, the
barrier efficiency of the air curtain started to greatly reduce to less
than 50%. Based on the above analysis results, from the dust control
perspective, the installation distance of the wall-mounted air duct
should be no more than 9.6 m.
4.1.3. Gas diffusion
The component diffusion model in ANYSY Fluent was used to
simulate the gas diffusion. Since gas had a smaller density than air,
it generally gathered around the roof of the roadway. Thus the gas
 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245
Fig. 14. The concentration distribution of gas at the Y = 3.1 m section: (a) D = 7.6 m; (b) D = 8.6 m; (c) D = 9.6 m; (d) D = 10.6 m; (e) D = 11.6 m; and (f) D = 12.6 m.
Fig. 15. The relationship between gas diffusion distance and installation distance.
concentration was analyzed at the height Y = 3.1 m near the roof.
The results are shown in Fig. 14.
From Fig. 14, after released from the excavation end, the gas
continues to spread outwards, and the diffusion distance increases
with the increase of the installation distance of the wall-mounted
air duct. As the diffusion distance increased, the concentration of
gas around the working face gradually reduced. When the wall-
mounted air duct was installed with a short distance from the
working face, the rotating air curtain restricted majority of the
gas to the limited area of the tunneling end, causing the gas to
accumulate at the tunneling end. As a result, the gas concentration
increases, which can cause a danger of explosion in some areas with
the gas concentration exceeding the limit. When the installation
position was moved backward, the ability of the rotating air cur-
tain to suppress gas was constantly weakened, and the gas diffusion
distance was also increased, thereby reducing the gas concentra-
tion to a certain extent. The statistical function of ANYSY Fluent was
used to calculate the distance under which 0.3% gas concentration
can be achieved. In addition, the relationship between the instal-
lation location of the wall-mounted air duct and the gas diffusion
distance was obtained, as shown in Fig. 15. From the figure, it can
also be indicated that with the increase in the distance between the
installation location of the wall-mounted air duct and the working
face, the gas diffusion distance almost has an exponential increase.
As the gas continued to spread outwards, the dilemma of gas accu-
mulation at the tunneling end was alleviated.
243
According to the above analysis, the installation location of the
wall-mounted air duct has a great influence on the safety of the
mine. When the installation distance is small, the dust control abil-
ity is strong, but the local concentration of the gas accumulated at
the tunneling end may exceed the limit, causing great safety risks.
When the installation distance is large, although the gas accumula-
tion can be alleviated, the dust diffusion distance is increased, thus
the concentration of dusts around the roadheader’s driver is too
high. Is there a suitable installation distance, under which not only
the dust diffusion can be effectively suppressed, but also the gas
concentration at the excavation end can be controlled within the
safe limit? Therefore, the combined effect of both gas accumula-
tion and dust diffusion should be considered to obtain the optimal
installation distance.
4.2. Discussions and analysis
Considering the actual situation, the concentration of dusts in
the driver’s area (3 m, 5 m, 1.6 m) was used as the index to evaluate
the performance of the wall-mounted swirling ventilation system
to control dusts. Meanwhile, the maximum concentration of gas at
the position in the roof 2 m away from the tunnel end was used as
an index to evaluate the gas control effect. The dust concentration
and gas concentration at above two locations were monitored and
analyzed using ANSYS Fluent statistical function. The results are
shown in Fig. 16.
From Fig. 16, the optimal dust reduction performance can be
achieved at the installation distance of7.6 m. At this distance, the
concentration of dusts in the driver’s area was only 28 mg/m3 .
However, under this condition, the maximum gas concentration
around the roof was 1.24%, which exceeded the upper limit (1.00%)
allowed by the regulations. Thus, the installation site with this dis-
tance is not recommended. When the installation distance was 8.6
m, the dust concentration (47 mg/m3 ) in the driver’s area was gen-
tly higher compared to the previous working condition, but the
gas concentration was lowered down to 0.97%. Although the gas
concentration was in the allowable range, it was very close to the
limit concentration. Thus this installation parameter is not recom-
mended, either. When the installation distance was 9.6 m, although
the dust concentration still increased, the gas concentration under
this working condition dropped to 0.65%, which was lower than
the safety threshold. Thus, this installation parameter is safe to use.
When the installation distance was increased to 10.6 m, 11.6 m, and
12.6 m, the average gas concentration in the section was far below
244 P. Wang et al. / Process Safety and Environmental Protection 141 (2020) 234–245
Fig. 16. The concentrations of dusts in the driver’s area and the maximum concentration of gas in the roof under different installation distances.
the limit and met the requirements of production safety. However,
under this condition, the dust concentration was more than 300
mg/m3 , and the driver working environment was harsh.
According to the above analysis, for the studied fully-
mechanized excavation face, the installation distance of 9.6 m is
recommended for the wall-mounted air duct. Under this instal-
lation distance, the concentration of gas in the fully mechanized
excavation face can be guaranteed to be within the allowable safe
range, and meanwhile, the ideal dust removal performance of the
system can be achieved.
5. Conclusions
This paper reported a novel numerical model according to the
C103 fully mechanized excavation face in Nahe Coal Mine of Bai
Coal Group, which was located in Baise, Guangxi Province. The
developed numerical model was applied to reveal the impact
of the installation distance of the wall-mounted air duct on the
performance of wall-mounted swirling ventilation, including air
flow field, dust concentration distribution and gas diffusion, etc.
Finally, the optimal installation distance was obtained. According
to the numerical simulation results, the performance of the wall-
mounted swirling ventilation to remove dusts and dilute gas in
the fully mechanized excavation face was highly dependent on the
installation location of the wall-mounted air duct. Increasing the
installation distance caused the wind curtain to move backward
and the dust control effect to be weaker. Meanwhile, increasing
the installation distance helped the gas diffusion and effectively
reduced the gas concentration at the excavation face. The instal-
lation distance of 9.6 m is recommended for the selected fully
mechanized excavation face. At this installation distance, the max-
imum concentration of gas at the top of the working face was
only 0.65%, and the concentration of dusts in the driver’s area
was only 59 mg/m3 . Therefore, when the wall-mounted air duct
was installed at the recommended distance (9.6 m),not only the
concentration of gas on the working face can be ensured within
the allowable range, but also an ideal dust control effect can be
obtained.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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