Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Process Safety and Environmental Protection

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

Optimization and implementation of a foam

system to suppress dust in coal mine excavation
face

Qingguo Wang, Deming Wang, Hetang Wang ∗ , Fangwei Han,

Xiaolong Zhu, Yan Tang, Weibin Si
Key Laboratory of Gas and Fire Control for Coal Mines of Ministry of Education, School of Safety Engineering, China
University of Mining & Technology, Xuzhou 221116, Jiangsu, China

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

Article history: Foam technology is more efficient than water sprays for dust control in coal mines, but the
Received 6 March 2015 traditional foam system is complex and poses problems related to foam production and
Received in revised form 12 May spraying application, with high water consumption, unstable equipment and relatively low
2015 utilization efficiency of foam. This paper describes an optimized foam system which over-
Accepted 26 May 2015 comes these disadvantages. The proposed foam generator has a self-suction unit that uses
Available online 4 June 2015 a turbulent-flow water jet to automatically draw in ambient air and foaming agent, thereby
eliminating the need for compressed-air hoses and pipes. As well as simplifying the system,
Keywords: it solves the current problem of water backflow created by high-pressure compressed air.
Foam A refined foam spraying structure was developed for use in conjunction with an operating
Dust suppression roadheader as it produces and diffuses dust. The structure consists of foam distribution
Nozzle supports and arc-fan nozzles. It can produce a more focused, continuous and uniform cov-
Mechanized excavation face erage at the source of the dust. The optimized system consumes less water and foaming
Coal mine agent, and achieves greater dust-suppression efficiency than methods in current use.
Jet © 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction in 2009 (Wang, 2010d), illustrating a rapidly increasing annual

At the present time, about 90% of coal is produced in under-
ground mines in China (Lin, 2014). With the development of
mechanized mining technology, ‘super’ coal faces now have
an annual output as high as hundreds or even thousands of
tonnes (Wang, 2010b), substantially increasing annual excava-
tion roadway consumption. Efficient mechanized excavation
technology has become a necessary condition to guaran-
tee high production rates and high mining efficiency. In
recent years, comprehensive mechanized excavation technol-
ogy, especially the use of boom-type roadheaders, has been
widely applied in many state-owned coal mines in China
(Wang, 2010c). The number of roadheaders purchased in China
has been reported to have increased from 72 in 1999 to 1311
trend. Complete mechanization has greatly enhanced produc-
tion efficiency in coal mines; however, large amounts of dust
are produced when a roadheader is operating, and accounts
for more than 80% of all dust produced at the excavation face
(Jing et al., 2010). Such volumes of dust are a ready cause of
pneumoconiosis in workers. Fig. 1 shows the growing number
of coal pneumoconiosis patients in China from 2003 to 2010
(Chen et al., 2013). In fact, most pneumoconiosis patients are
from coal mine excavation face in China.
The conventional method of dust control at the excava-
tion face is the use of water spray to capture dust particles
in the air (Kissell, 2003; Colinet et al., 2008; Han et al., 2014).
It is difficult to suppress the dust well in this way because of
the large quantity of dust and its rapid diffusion when the

∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 15150013592; fax: +86 516 83590592.
E-mail address: whtcumt@126.com (H. Wang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2015.05.009
0957-5820/© 2015 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190
Fig. 1 – The number of coal pneumoconiosis patients in China from 2003 to 2010.
roadheader is operating (Hu et al., 2013; Kurnia et al., 2014).
To effectively control the dust, however, a medium must be
found that suppresses the dust close to the source, before
it diffuses into the whole roadway space. Being a gas–liquid
medium, foam has the unique advantages of greater sur-
ficial area, and stronger wetting and adhesion capability.
Foam can quickly wet and adhere to dust particles. Since the
mid-twentieth century, research on foam dust suppression
technology has confirmed it to be an efficient way to con-
trol dust. Some British coal mines in 1946 injected foam into
the drilling hole to wet the dust and inhibit its release into
the air. The average dust control efficiencies reached 83.6%,
achieving excellent effects (Price, 1946; Mullins, 1950). In the
early 1980s, a compressed-air type of foam dust suppression
device was developed by the United Sates Bureau of Mines.
Compressed air, water and surfactant were mixed and forced
through a metal mesh to created foam. The foam dust con-
trol efficiency was greater than 50% and water consumption
was only 1/5 to 1/10 that of water spray devices (Mukherjee
and Singh, 1984; Laurito and Singh, 1987). Japanese schol-
ars in 1983 analyzed the working parameters of mesh-type
foam devices and carried out dust control experiments in the
coal mining machines. Their results showed the foam tech-
nology could reduce the suspended dust 40% to 50% more
than water spray (Mei, 1984). In the 21st century, Wang (2013)
put forward the Venturi-type foam generator and tested it in
coal mines, achieving good effects (Wang, 2013; Ren et al.,
2014).
2. Shortcomings of traditional foam dust
suppression technology
However, the traditional foam dust suppression technology
still has certain shortcomings both in foam production and
spraying. In the aspect of foam production, many foam gen-
erators often use compressed air to produce foam (Page and
Volkwein, 1986; Zhao, 2007; Park, 1971), and the use brings
limitations to foam production at the excavation face: (1) the
pressure of the compressed-air supply in an underground
mine is often unstable and difficult to adjust, commonly
resulting in high-pressure water backflow which affects the
use of the equipment; and (2) compressed-air pipe to the foam
generator takes up some space on a roadheader, increasing
the complexity of the system, and making it difficult to use in
narrow excavation faces. What is more, a quantitative additive
pump is often used to add foaming agent for the traditional
foam generator, making the system more complex and incon-
venient.
185
To make full use of the foam, the shape of the foam flow
must be similar to the shape of the dust source. In current
spraying structures, solid cone nozzles and flat nozzles are
commonly used to spray foam (Wang et al., 2011; Singh and
Laurito, 2004; Wang, 2010a,b,c,d; Han et al., 2008). Because the
cutting head of the longitudinal roadheader is roughly coni-
cal, the spray range of the nozzle should ideally be circular,
approximating the largest circumference of the cutting head;
therefore, the flow of foam through the solid cone nozzle and
flat nozzle does not cover the dust source efficiently, resulting
in low foam utilization efficiency.
3. The new foam dust suppression system
To overcome these shortcomings, the optimized foam gen-
erator, distribution support and nozzle were designed and
subjected to laboratory and field tests, and achieved good
results.
Fig. 2 shows the proposed foam generator. It consists of
a self-suction part and a foam-producing part. The working
process is as follows. For its power, it requires only the high-
pressure water supply normally available in underground
mines. First, the high-pressure water flow is passed through a
jet nozzle to convert it to high-velocity turbulent fluid flow,
automatically drawing ambient air and foaming agent into
the mixing chamber. Then, the swirler accelerates the mixing
of air and liquid to produce a high-quality foam. The advan-
tages of the new version are as follows: (1) The compressed-air
pipes and the extraneous equipment for adding foaming
agent have been totally removed, making the whole system
more simple and convenient. (2) The automatic suction of
air and foaming agent into the mixing unit eliminates water
backflow. (3) The swirler reduces resistance in the foaming
process.
According to jet theory, the vacuum degree formed by a
water jet will increase with an increase in water velocity. The
increase of vacuum degree will then increase the amount of
air entrained as well as the amount of foaming agent drawn
into the mixing chamber.
To obtain the working parameters of the foam generator,
we designed the related experimental system to test the self-
suction capacity and foaming capacity. The ratio of air flow qg
to water flow qw was used to evaluate the relative air-suction
function. The ratio of foam flow qf to water flow qw is used
to evaluate the foaming function. The percentage of added
foaming agent flow qa to water flow qw is used to evaluate
the added foaming agent property. The results are shown in
Figs. 3 and 4.
186 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190

Fig. 2 – The proposed foam generator.

Fig. 3 shows the relationship between water flow and
air flow, foam flow and foaming agent flow. It can be seen
that with the increase of water flow, air self-suction amount,
foam production quantity and foaming agent suction quan-
tity increased linearly. The phenomenon confirms jet theory.
As the foam is mainly composed of gas, the foam produc-
tion quantity is basically the same as the amount of the air
entrainment.
Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the water flow and
the three factors qg /qw , qf /qw and qa /qw . It can be seen that
qg /qw and qf /qw increase with increasing qw until qw = 0.4 m3 /h,
when qg /qw and qf /qw reached 62.4 and 61.3, respectively.
Then, qg /qw and qf /qw remained steady until qw exceeded
0.6 m3 /h, after which these ratios gradually decreased. The
conclusion can be that 0.4–0.6 m3 /h was an optimum water
flow rate of the new foam generator. The additive proportion
of foaming agent for the traditional foaming generators is usu-
ally more than 2%, but ranges from 0.8% to 0.9% for the new
generator (YMMB and CQBCSI, 1993; Seibel, 1976). The pro-
posed foam generator reduced foaming agent consumption
efficiently.
Fig. 5 shows the structure and spray of the arc-fan nozzle. A
new type of nozzle is mainly comprised of a foam inlet, outlet
and flow-guide vane. The cylindrical design of the flow out-
let reduces turbulence intensity. The flow-guide vane, which
resembles a streamlined trung koni, produces a coherent, arc-
fan shaped foam spray similar in shape to the roadheader’s
dust source.
In order to describe the coverage performance of foam, as
shown in Fig. 6, two geometric parameters were defined: cov-
erage chord length Lch and coverage diameter length Hch . Lch
represents the maximum chord length of the dust source that

Fig. 3 – Relationship between water flow and air flow, foam flow and foaming agent flow.
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190 187

Fig. 4 – Relationship between water flow and qg /qw , qf /qw and qa /qw .

Fig. 5 – The structure and spray of the arc-fan nozzle.

a single arc-fan nozzle can cover; Hch represents the maxi-
mum perpendicular distance between the covered dust source
and the coverage chord length. The coverage chord length and
the coverage diameter length can determine the final coverage
area of foam flow.
The flow-guide vane’s length, long diameter and short
diameter of an arc-fan nozzle l, d, h are key factors that deter-
mine the coverage performance of foam. According to the
spatial geometry, the relationship between a nozzle’s struc-
tural parameters and foam coverage performance can be
expressed by the following equations:
dLtd
Lch = (1)
l In order to obtain these two correction factors, the noz-
hLtd
Hch = (2)
l parameters are shown in Table 1. To adapt to the underground
where Ltd is the length between the nozzle and the target
point. As the foam flow can be influenced by gravity, air resis-
tance and other factors after spray, it will not completely flow
as predicted from geometry rules. Eqs. (1) and (2) thus need
to be revised. The correction factor  for the coverage chord
length and the correction factor ε for the coverage diameter
length were incorporated into the revised following equations:
dLtd
Lch = (3)
l
 εhLtd
Hch = (4)
l
zles with different length, long diameter and short diameter
of the the flow-guide vane were studied and the structural

Fig. 6 – The foam coverage performance for an arc-fan nozzle.

188 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190

Table 1 – The structural parameters of nozzles used in Table 3 – The foam coverage performance of arc-fan
experiment. nozzles with different tructural parameters.
Number d (mm) h (mm) Number d (mm) h (mm) Lch (mm) Hch (mm)

1 17 7.5 1 34.3 8 859 165

2 20 7.5 2 34.3 8.5 858 171
3 23 7.5 3 34.3 9 858 179
4 26 7.5
5 29 7.5
were chosen as the final values and the equations were as
6 26 7.5
7 26 10 follows:
8 26 12.5
9 26 15
40Lch
d= (5)
Ltd


44Hch
h= (6)
Ltd

4. Field implementation

The 810 roadway being excavated in rock at the Zhu

Fig. 7 – The foam flow captured by the high-speed camera.
environment, the diameter of the foam outlet and the length
of the flow-guide vane were set as 10 mm and 30 mm, respec-
tively.
The Hch and Lch were measured by a high-speed camera
that was able to capture and analyse the specific size of the
pictures. The high-speed camera used in this experiment had
1280 × 800 pixel and a shooting rate of 200 frames per second.
To improve the contrast, a black curtain was used to simulate a
roadway during the experiments so the camera could capture
the foam flow clearly and the image is shown in Fig. 7.
Through the theoretical calculations and experimental
tests, the relevant parameters were obtained and are shown
in Table 2. It can be seen from Table 2 that the actual cover-
age chord length or coverage diameter length keeps the same
change tendency with the flow-guide vane’s long diameter or
short diameter; the correction factor  ranged from 0.68 to 0.85
and the correction factor ε ranged from 0.60 to 0.72, with aver-
age values of 0.75 and 0.68, respectively. The average values
Xianzhuang coal mine was selected as the field test site. The
area of the supported section of roadway was 13.87 m2 (4.6 m
wide × 3.5 m high). The lithologies of the rock were mainly
sandy mudstone and medium sandstone, from which a large
amount of dust can be produced.
To solve the dust problem of the high-power machine,
two foam generators and four arc-fan nozzles were used.
As the maximum outside diameter of the cutting head was
1212 mm, L ch = 856.9 mm and H ch = 177 mm were calculated.
The distance between the nozzle and the target point Ltd was
1000 mm. According to Eqs. (5) and (6), the long diameter and
short diameter of the the flow-guide vane d, h were 34.3 mm
and 7.8 mm, respectively.
To verify the actual coverage performance of the nozzle,
coverage chord length and coverage diameter length were
measured in the laboratory and the result was Lch = 859 mm
and Hch = 156 mm. The coverage chord length Lch satisfied the
condition but the coverage diameter length Hch was smaller
than the requirement. To solve this problem, nozzles with dif-
ferent structural parameters were tested and the results are
shown in Table 3. The nozzle with d = 34.3 mm and h = 9 mm
was the final choice.
Fig. 8 shows implementation of the proposed foam-
producing equipment. This mainly includes the foaming agent
unit (560 mm × 460 mm × 220 mm high, weighing 40 kg) and
two integrated foam generators, one at either side of the unit.
The unit and foam generators are connected by inflow hoses
and needle valves.
Fig. 9 is a diagram of the proposed dust suppression system
installed on a 318 kw longitudinal roadheader. Four magnets
attached the foam-producing equipment to the roadheader
next to the driver for timely and convenient control. The

Table 2 – The correction factors.

Number Lch (mm) Hch (mm) L ch (mm) H ch (mm)  ε

1 570 250 480 180 0.85 0.72

2 670 250 510 170 0.77 0.68
3 770 250 600 180 0.78 0.72
4 870 250 610 170 0.70 0.68
5 970 250 660 180 0.68 0.72
6 870 250 610 180 0.70 0.72
7 870 330 630 200 0.73 0.60
8 870 420 640 260 0.74 0.62
9 870 500 700 310 0.81 0.62
 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 9 6 ( 2 0 1 5 ) 184–190 189

Fig. 8 – The implementation of the proposed foam-producing equipment.

Table 4 – The dust concentration under different conditions.

Driver position Without any solution Traditional New

td rd td rd td rd

Measured data (mg/m3 ) 1027.8 443.2 138.9 74.4 129.5 62.5

980.3 411.7 132.7 65.8 124.7 58.0
986.5 424.2 134.3 68.3 126.2 59.8

Average concentration (mg/m3 ) 998.2 426.4 135.3 69.5 126.8 60.1

50 mm diameter underground high-pressure water pipe was 5. Conclusion

split by a T-valve into two 19 mm diameter pipes connected
to the foam generators. Two 25 mm diameter pipes then car-
ried the foam to the support and nozzles. The working water
flow was 1 m3 /h for two foam generators and the rate of foam
production was 60 m3 /h.
The field tests carried out over a period of 1 month indi-
cated that the optimized system is more stable and reliable
than the traditional system. Three groups of measured data
for the dust concentration of total dust (td) and respirable
dust (rd) were obtained for three different conditions: (i) no
dust suppression; (ii) traditional method; and (iii) proposed
method, as listed in Table 4. The test results show that the dust
suppression efficiencies of the new foam technology achieved
the remarkable results of 87.3% for td and 85.9% for rd, which
are both higher than the equivalent figures for the traditional
method.
(1) An optimized foam dust suppression system for use
at a coal mine excavation face was designed in the
present study. High-pressure water piped through the
mine provides the power to the proposed foam-producing
equipment, and a self-suction unit draws ambient air and
foaming agent automatically to generate foam, then to
arc-fan nozzles which spray the foam. The compressed-air
pipes and the extraneous equipment for adding foam-
ing agent have been totally removed, making the whole
system more simple. Less water and foaming agent are
required for the proposed foam generator, and the arc-fan
nozzles improve the foam utilization efficiency.
(2) Field implementation in a large-section rock roadway indi-
cated that the optimized system was more convenient and
stable, with higher dust suppression efficiencies than tra-
ditional systems. It provided better dust control needs at
the coal mine excavation face, and has promising poten-
tial.

Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the Fundamental Research

Funds for the Central Universities (2015QNA02), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (51474216) and by the
Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher
Education Institutions (PAPD). The authors are very grateful to
the technicians of Zhuxianzhuang Coal Mine for their assis-
tance.

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