Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

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

Numerical simulation of ventilation and dust suppression system for

open-type TBM tunneling work area
Yimin Xia a,⇑, Duan Yang a, Chenghuan Hu a, Caizhang Wu a, Jialin Han b
a
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
b
China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co. Ltd, Changsha 410100, China

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

Article history: In order to study the characteristics of the ventilation and dust suppression system for open-type TBM
Received 1 July 2015 tunneling work area in a Ø8.53 diversion project, the numerical simulation method is adopted, and a
Received in revised form 29 December 2015 three-dimensional steady airflow model, a dust flow model as well as other related flow characteristic
Accepted 3 March 2016
equation models are established by considering the dust production mechanism of TBM construction.
Available online 8 March 2016
Besides, corresponding simulation models validated by experiment are established using CFD software,
and the impacts of the main vent location, the air baffle length in the main beam and the exhausting
Keywords:
air flow quantity on flow field distribution and dust flow behavior in open-type TBM tunneling work area
TBM construction
Tunnel ventilation
are investigated. The results show: when the main vent is located 70–80 m away from the working face,
Dust suppression the ventilation in TBM tunneling work area is optimal; when the air baffle is as long as the main beam,
CFD technology the dust collection efficiency is the highest, reaching 89.4%; under the condition that the exhausting air
Tunneling work area flow quantity is less than half of the ventilation air flow quantity required by energy consumption and the
minimum backflow velocity, the best dust suppression effect can be achieved when the exhausting air
flow quantity is 40% of the ventilation air flow quantity.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) is currently the most advanced
tunneling machinery featured by multi-process parallel operation
including tunnel excavation, mucking, and lining. The ventilation
and dust suppression system plays an important role in TBM con-
struction process to transport fresh air to the work area and dilute
dust and hazardous gas generated due to TBM excavating, which is
directly related to the safety of construction workers.
The numerical simulation method has been used by a number
of scholars to study the ventilation and dust suppression system
and the flow field characteristics of tunnels, coal mine roadways
and other underground spaces. Aminossadati and Hooman
(2008), Parra et al. (2006) and Torano et al. (2009, 2011) used
CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technology to establish ven-
tilation system models for coal mine roadways and validated them
with experimental measurement in real coal mine roadways.
Kurnia et al. (2014a, 2014b) simulated a ventilation system of mul-
tiple outlet nozzles with intermittent on–off flapper valves. The
result shows that with this ventilation system, significant energy
savings can be achieved while the ventilation requirements are
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xiaymj@csu.edu.cn (Y. Xia).
satisfied. Sasmito et al. (2013) and Zhang et al. (2015) simulated
and analyzed the methane distribution in coal mine roadways
through numerical simulation and thus provided some bases for
the design of a ventilation system. Taking a fully mechanized
working face of a coal mine as a study case, Wang et al. (2011b)
simulated the flow field and dust distribution during the process
of dust isolation by an air curtain. An analysis of the results reveals
that the best location to install the air curtain is on the shearer.
Camelli et al. (2014), Huang et al. (2013) and Weng et al. (2014)
focused on the ventilation of subways, and improved the ventila-
tion efficiency by using numerical simulation methods.
Amouzandeh et al. (2014), Chen et al. (2013), Caliendo et al.
(2013), Muhasilovic and Duhovnik (2012) and Tilley et al. (2011)
used three-dimensional k
e turbulence models to simulate the
temperature distribution in case of tunnel fire and analyzed the
ventilation modes to control fire and smoke. Lee et al. (2014) real-
ized a CFD analysis for ventilation fans of the tunnel to evaluate the
ventilation characteristics of the fan with different pitch angles and
found the best pitch angle is 6°. Combining experiment and simu-
lation results, Ren et al. (2014) determined that the best ventilation
air quantity of an underground bin is 10–13 m3/s.
Conceivably, numerical simulation based on CFD technology
has been widely used to study the ventilation and dust suppression
system of coal mine roadways, tunnels and other underground

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tust.2016.03.003
0886-7798/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78 71

spaces, and desirable results have been achieved. Nevertheless, for the turbulence. For the three-dimensional incompressible fluid
TBM construction, there is a significant difference in the ventilation flow, the model is given as follows:
mode and dust production mechanism, and thus relevant research Turbulent kinetic energy equation:
results cannot be directly applied to TBM ventilation and dust sup- 
 
@ lt
pression system. ðqkÞ þ r  ðqkUÞ ¼ r  lþ rk þ Gk
qe ð4Þ
In this paper, with the ventilation and dust suppression system @t rk
for open-type TBM tunneling work area in a Ø8.53 diversion pro-
ject as the research object, a simplified three-dimensional model Turbulent dissipation rate equation:
is established considering the ventilation mode and dust produc- 
 
@ lt eG e2
tion mechanism of TBM construction. Subsequently, the character- ðqeÞ þ r  ðqeUÞ ¼ r  lþ re þ C 1e k þ C 2e q ð5Þ
istics of TBM ventilation and dust suppression system under
@t re k k
different working conditions are investigated through numerical
where k is the turbulent kinetic energy (m2/s2), e is the turbulent
simulation based on CFD technology.
dissipation rate (m2/s3), Gk represents the generation of turbulent
kinetic energy due to mean velocity gradient, C 1e and C 2e are the
2. Mathematical model model constants, rk and re are turbulent Prandtl numbers for k
and e, respectively, l is the dynamic viscosity coefficient (Pa s),
The ventilation and dust suppression system configured on TBM and lt is the turbulent viscosity coefficient (Pa s) given by
is a far-pressing-near-absorption (FPNA) ventilation system, in Launder and Spalding (1974) as follows:
which fresh air is forced to the tunneling work area through the 2
top of the tunnel and dust generated by tunneling is sucked to k
lt ¼ qC l ð6Þ
the dry scrubber by a dust fan through the TBM main beam and e
the dust duct, for which the flow process is complicated. In the pre- According to the values recommended by Launder et al. and
sent work, with an appropriate simplification of the ventilation and later proved by experiments, the values of the model constants
dust suppression system configured on TBM, the three- are C 1e ¼ 1:44; C 2e ¼ 1:92; rk ¼ 1:0; re ¼ 1:3 and C l ¼ 0:09.
dimensional steady air flow model, the dust flow model and other
related flow characteristics equation models are established by 2.3. Dust flow behavior model
employing hydrodynamic theory.
During the TBM construction process, a large amount of dust is
2.1. Basic assumptions generated due to the cutting and extrusion between disc cutters
and rocks. These dust particles, when moving in the air field, suffer
(1) The ventilation air is modeled as a three-dimensional, forces mainly from gravity mp g, buoyancy Fb , drag force FD , added
viscous and incompressible Newtonian fluid. mass force FVM , pressure gradient force FP , Basset force FB , Saffman
(2) The air flow is assumed as steady turbulence. lift force FSL and Magnus force FML . In this paper, as the dust parti-
(3) The air leakage of the duct is ignored, and the flow in the cle density qp is far greater than the air density q and the particle
duct and pressure loss are not considered. diameter is large, buoyancy Fb , added mass force FVM , Basset force
(4) The contact between the shield and the wall is tight with no FB , Saffman lift force FSL and Magnus force FML are ignored. There-
air and no dust going through the gap between them. fore, the flow motion equation for per unit mass dust particle in the
air field is:
2.2. Air flow model
dUp
¼ g þ FD þ FP ð7Þ
Air flow and heat transfer processes follow mass conservation dt
law, momentum conservation law and energy conservation law, When the dust particles are simplified into spherical particles,
the corresponding mathematical models are the continuity equa- the drag force FD and the pressure gradient force FP are calculated
tion, Navier–Stokes equation and energy conservation equation, as follows:
as follows:
18l C D Re
@q FD ¼ ðUf
Up Þ ð8Þ
þ r  ðqUÞ ¼ 0 ð1Þ qP d2p 24
@t

@ 1
ðqUÞ þ r  ðqUUÞ ¼
rp þ r  s þ F ð2Þ Fp ¼
rpf ð9Þ
@t qp

 where Uf is the velocity vector of air flow, Up is the velocity vector
@ k
ðqTÞ þ r  ðqUTÞ ¼ r  rT þ sT ð3Þ of dust particle, q is the air density, qP is the dust particle density, dp
@t cP
is the dust particle diameter and Re is the particle Reynolds number
where q is the air density, U ¼ ðv x ; v y ; v z Þ is the air velocity vector, calculated as follows:
rp is the pressure gradient, s is the viscous stress tensor,
F ¼ ðF x ; F y ; F z Þ is the vector of body force, T is the temperature, k
qdp jUp
Uf j
Re ¼ ð10Þ
and cP are the heat transfer coefficient and the air specific heat ratio,
l
respectively, and sT is the viscous dissipation phase. The calculation formula for the drag coefficient C D is given as
The air flow in the tunnel is a typical turbulent flow. In this follows:
paper, the two-equation k
e turbulence model (Launder and
a2 a3
Spalding, 1974), which has been widely used in studies of the ven- C D ¼ a1 þ þ ð11Þ
Re Re2
tilation system (Branny and Filipek, 2008; Fan et al., 2012;
Hargreaves and Lowndes, 2007; Lowndesa et al., 2004; Silvester where a1 ; a2 and a3 are constants and given by Morsi and Alexander
et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2011a, 2011b), is adopted to simulate (1972) as follows:
72 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78

8
>
> 0; 24; 0 0 < Re < 0:1 is established, as shown in Fig. 2. A circle surface whose center
>
>
>
> 3:690; 22:73; 0:0903 0:1 < Re < 1 coordinates are (0, 1.4, 1) and radius is 0.2 m was built as the dust
>
>
>
> 1:222; 29:1667;
3:8889 1 < Re < 10 injection face on y = 1.4 m cross-section in the cutterhead. Dust is
>
>
>
> released from the circle surface and falls into the cutterhead with
>
< 0:6167; 46:50;
116:67
> 10 < Re < 100
an initial velocity of v ¼ 0 m/s and a total mass flow rate of
a1 ; a2 ; a3 ¼ 0:3644; 98:33;
2778 100 < Re < 1000 0.02 kg/s. Rosin–Rammler distribution function was used to
>
>
>
> 0:357; 148:62;
47; 500 1000 < Re < 5000 describe dust particle size distribution and the parameters are:
>
>
>
> min diameter Dmin ¼ 10 lm, max diameter Dmax ¼ 200 lm, mean
> 0:46;
490:546; 578; 700
> 5000 < Re < 10; 000
>
>
>
> 0:5191;
1662:5; 5; 416; 700 Re P 10; 000 diameter Dmean ¼ 100 lm and spread parameter n ¼ 3:5. Dust
>
>
: material is granite with a density of 2.7 g/cm3.
The dust suppression structure in TBM main beam is shown in
Fig. 3, from which it can be seen that the main beam is separated
The discrete random walk model is used to simulate the turbu-
by the baffle into two parts, the lower part and the upper part,
lent dispersion of particles, which assumes that the values of u0 ; v 0
and the end of the upper part is connected with the dust duct.
and w0 that prevail during the lifetime of the turbulent eddy obey a
Due to the negative pressure generated by the dust fan, air is
Gaussian probability distribution, so that:
sucked through the lower part of the main beam into the cutter-
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
head inside, where the air mixes with dust. Then, the air together
u0 ¼ 1 ðu0 Þ2 ð12Þ with the dust is sucked into the dust duct through the upper part of
the main beam. Considering the impact of the belt conveyor on the
where u0 ; v 0 and w0 are velocity fluctuations in X, Y and Z axial direc-
air field, a simplified belt conveyor model is established with a run-
tions, respectively, 1 is a normally distributed random number, and
ning speed of 3 m/s.
the remainder of the right-hand side is the local RMS value of the
The model computation grid is shown in Fig. 4. Both hexahedral
velocity fluctuations.
mesh and tetrahedron mesh are used to mesh the computational
domain due to the complex geometry of the model, and body-
3. Establishment of physical model fitted grids and local grid encryption are used to mesh the cutter-
head and the main beam. The total number of the computation grid
The diameter of the main tunnel in the diversion project is for the model is 1745121.
Ø8.53 and the total construction length is 29.365 km. One open-
type TBM is used to excavate the diversion tunnel in a straight tun-
neling direction with a longitudinal slope gradient of 0.3116‰.
With the ventilation and dust suppression system for the open-
type TBM of the Ø8.53 diversion project as the research object, the
simplified ventilation and dust suppression system model is estab-
lished using Gambit software, which includes a cutterhead, a
shield, a main beam and a ventilation duct etc., as shown in
Fig. 1. There are two inlets in this system. Inlet1 is at the top of
the tunnel and 70 m away from the working face, through which
most of fresh air is forced into the tunnel. Inlet2 is fixed on the
bridge and about 25 m away from the working face. The rest of
fresh air is forced to the front of the tunnel through the duct, bridge
inside and inlet2 to ensure enough fresh air in the excavating area.
During TBM tunneling, a large amount of dust is generated in
the cutterhead due to rock-breaking and muck falling from the
muck chute to the belt conveyor. Considering the impact of
cutterhead rotating on dust flow, a simplified cutterhead model Fig. 2. Simplified cutterhead model.

Fig. 1. Physical model of ventilation and dust suppression system for open-type TBM.
 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78
Fig. 3. Dust suppression structure in TBM main beam.
Fig. 4. Computation grid used for the physical model.
The boundary conditions of the model are velocity inlet, pres-
sure outlet and standard walls. Especially, in order to control the
value of exhausting air flow quantity of the dust fan, the velocity
inlet boundary was used to define the air flow velocity at the dust
duct exit. The relationship between exhausting air flow quantity
and air velocity in the dust duct is expressed as follows:
Q ¼ Av
where Q is exhausting air flow quantity, A is cross-sectional size of
the dust duct, and v is air flow velocity.
Considering the high moisture and toughness of the tunnel wall,
it is reasonable to assume the dust particles will be trapped when
Fig. 5. Result of simulation: (a) air streamlines indicating the flow of air stream from inlet1; (b) air velocity vector on x ¼ 0 profile; (c) air velocity contour on x ¼ 0 profile.
73
they drop on the tunnel wall. In addition, the simulation was per-
formed using ANSYS-Fluent (ANSYS, 2012).
4. Validation of model effectiveness
According to the test data from the TBM construction site, inlet1
velocity is 20 m/s (air flow quantity is 19 m3/s), inlet2 velocity is
19 m/s (air flow quantity is 5 m3/s), and exhausting velocity is
20 m/s (air flow quantity is 12 m3/s). Fig. 5a illustrates the stream-
lines of air forced into the tunnel from inlet1, and Fig. 5b and c
show the air velocity vector and the air velocity contour on x ¼ 0
profile, respectively. It can be observed from Fig. 5b and c that
the velocity distribution in the tunnel is reasonable as the air
velocity in most part of the tunnel is greater than 1 m/s; the fresh
air forced into the tunnel from inlet1 flows forward along the top
of the tunnel and begins to flow back in the area about 45 m away
from the working face where the air velocity fully meets the ven-
tilation requirements; as the exhausting air flow quantity (12 m3/
s) is greater than the air flow quantity of inlet2 (5 m3/s), a part of
the fresh air continues to flow toward the front of the tunnel and
the velocity is low in the region of 25–35 m away from the working
face (shown as the dash line area in Fig. 5c); the velocity in the
lower part of the main beam is between 6 and 8 m/s, which pre-
vents dust from diffusing from the cutterhead inside to the tunnel.
As shown in Fig. 5c, 8 feature locations, for which it is conve-
nient to test the air velocity on site are selected as test points:
P1–P4 are located at the top of the tunnel and in a straight line
with inlet1; P6 is located under the second part of the main beam;
P5, P7 and P8, which are used to test the backflow velocity, are
located at the lower part of the tunnel. SMART SENSOR AR866
handheld hot film anemometer with a wind speed range from 0
to 30 m/s and a measurement error of ±3% is used to measure
the velocity. The anemometer and field test are shown in Fig. 6
and the comparison between experiment data and simulation pre-
dicted is illustrated in Fig. 7. The result shows a good agreement
between the two sets of data obtained with the average relative
error as 15.56%, which validates the effectiveness of the model.
ð13Þ
5. Results and discussions
Combined with the actual working conditions of TBM ventila-
tion and dust suppression system in the diversion project and
through numerical simulation of the above model, the impacts of
74 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78

Fig. 6. Test instrument and field test.

main vent (inlet1) location on air velocity distribution is investi-

Fig. 7. The comparison between experiment data and simulation predicted.
the main vent location, the air baffle length in the main beam and
the exhausting air flow quantity on flow field distribution and dust
flow behavior in the open-type TBM tunneling work area are
studied.
5.1. Impact of main vent location
Since inlet2 is fixed at the front of the bridge and its air flow
quantity is far smaller than that of inlet1, only the impact of the
gated in this paper. Four physical models are established, for which
the distance (L1) between inlet1 and the working face is 60 m,
70 m, 80 m and 90 m, respectively.
It can be seen from Fig. 8 that the inlet1 location plays an
important role in determining the air velocity distribution. Plenty
of fresh air is forced into the tunnel through inlet1 and flows for-
ward along the top of the tunnel. At the area about 50 m away from
inlet1, fresh air begins to flow to the lower part of the tunnel and
flow back. In the region of 0–50 m from inlet1, ventilation is ideal
since the air velocity is high. In the first 25 m of the tunnel, the air
velocity distribution can satisfy the ventilation requirements due
to the air supplying of inlet2 and the exhausting by the dust fan.
Taking a cross-section every 10 m in the tunnel, the air velocity
distribution curve of the tunnel based on the average air velocity of
each cross-section is obtained, as shown in Fig. 9.
It can be seen from the curves that the air velocity distributions
of the first 25 m of the tunnel under different inlet1 locations are
similar and that all of the peaks of the average air velocity for these
four cases occur at the point about 20 m away from the working
face, which indicates that the inlet1 location makes little contribu-
tion to the air velocity distribution of this region. In the subsequent
region, however, the impact of the inlet1 location on air velocity
distribution becomes apparent: with L1 increasing, the distance
between the location of the average air velocity peak and the work-
ing face also increases.

Fig. 8. Air velocity distributions on x ¼ 0 profile when inlet1 is located at 60, 70, 80 and 90 m from working face (m/s).
 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78
Fig. 9. Average air velocity distribution curves of the tunnel under different inlet1
locations (m/s).
In summary, inlet1 should be placed in a location that is neither
too far nor too close from the working face. When too far, an area of
low air velocity is prone to occur in the region beyond 25 m from
the working face where the air velocity cannot meet the ventilation
requirements. For example, when L1 = 90 m, the average air veloc-
ity of 30 m cross-section is lower than 0.5 m/s. When too close, the
ventilation of the region between inlet1 and the working face is
ideal, but after this region, the average air velocity rapidly reduces
to the minimum of design requirements which is always 0.3 m/s.
Nevertheless, an appropriate increase in the distance between
inlet1 and the working face will reduce the size of minimum air
velocity area, which can improve the ventilation efficiency. There-
fore, the best location of inlet1 is 70–80 m away from the working
face where ventilation is optimal.
5.2. Impact of the air baffle length in main beam
The air baffle which separates the TBM main beam into two
parts (the lower part and the upper part) is located above the con-
veyor belt. The air flows into the cutterhead inside through the
lower part of the main beam and then, after mixed with dust, is
sucked into the dust duct through the upper part of the main beam.
The TBM main beam includes three sections: front, middle and
rear, whose lengths are L1 = 7.45 m, L2 = 8.24 m and L3 = 4.49 m,
respectively. In this work, three physical models are established
with the baffle length as LB = L1 + L2 + L3, LB = L2 + L3 and LB = L3,
respectively. The air velocity distributions of the three models
are shown in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10. Air velocity distributions on x ¼ 0 profile under different air baffle lengths (m/s).
75
It can be seen from Fig. 10 that the length of the baffle has a sig-
nificant impact on the air flow in the main beam. Due to the sealing
function of the shield, the only way air flows into the cutterhead
inside is through the lower part of the main beam. When LB = L1 + -
L2 + L3, air can flow easily into the cutterhead along the lower part
of the main beam. With LB decreasing, less and less air can be
sucked into the cutterhead inside to carry dust by the dust fan.
The dust concentration (the dust mass in per unit air volume) dis-
tribution under different baffle lengths is shown in Fig. 11. When
LB = L1 + L2 + L3 (as shown in Fig. 11a), most of the dust is sucked
into the dust duct through the upper part of the main beam and
there is very little dust in the lower part of the main beam and
the cutterhead support, which is beneficial to equipment protec-
tion. With the decrease of LB, the dust distribution region enlarges
(see Fig. 11b and c), which poses a great hazard to equipment and
instruments due to dust deposition. The dust collection efficiency
is defined as follows:
N
g¼  100% ð14Þ
N0
where g is the dust collection efficiency, N is the number of dust
particles trapped by the scrubber, and N 0 is the total number of dust
particles.
The dust collection efficiency for each of the three physical
models is shown in Fig. 12. When LB = L1 + L2 + L3 (as long as the
main beam), the dust collection efficiency is the highest reaching
89.4%, while for LB = L2 + L3 and LB = L3, the dust collection efficien-
cies are 33% and 15%, respectively.
In summary, the air baffle should be as long as possible, since
this can be of great benefit to the dust suppression in the TBM
main beam. The dust collection efficiency increases with the
increase of the air baffle length.
5.3. Impact of exhausting air flow quantity
In the TBM tunneling work area, considering the energy con-
sumption and the minimum backflow velocity requirement, the
exhausting air flow quantity is always less than half of the ventila-
tion air flow quantity. In this study, the exhausting air flow quan-
tity of 0, 2.4, 4.8, 7.2, 9.6 and 12 m3/s (the ventilation air flow
quantity is 24 m3/s), for which the corresponding exhausting air
flow velocity at the dust duct exit is 0, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 m/s, is
taken to explore its impact on the ventilation and dust suppression
system. Taking a cross-section every 5 m in the tunnel, the air
velocity distribution curve of the tunnel based on the average air
velocity of each cross-section is obtained, as shown in Fig. 13.
76 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78
Fig. 11. Dust concentration distributions on x ¼ 0 profile under different air baffle lengths (g/m3).
Fig. 12. Dust collection efficiencies under different air baffle lengths.
Fig. 13. Average air velocity distribution curves of the tunnel under different
exhausting air flow quantities (m/s).
It can be observed from Fig. 13 that the change of exhausting air
flow quantity has a great impact on the average air velocity of first
30 m of the tunnel while a slight impact on the following region.
When the exhausting air flow quantity is 0 m3/s, which means
the dust suppression system does not work, the average air veloc-
ity first gradually increases along the tunnel from 70 m (location of
inlet1) to 50 m where it reaches the peak, 2.22 m/s, and then
decreases gradually to about 1 m/s at 30 m. In the region of 25–
30 m, due to the air supplied by inlet2, the air velocity has a small
increase. When the dust suppression system works, the average air
velocity of 0–30 m region increases obviously with the increase of
the exhausting air flow quantity, while the average air velocity of
the following region decreases a little due to the decrease of the
backflow quantity.
Fig. 14a illustrates the dust concentration distribution when the
dust suppression system does not work, from which it can be seen
that dust is mainly concentrated in the cutterhead and the main
beam. However, there is also a large amount of dust diffusing into
the tunnel, which poses a great hazard to both construction work-
ers and construction equipment. Fig. 14b illustrates the dust con-
centration distribution when the exhausting air flow quantity is
2.4 m3/s, in which dust is totally blocked in the cutterhead and
the main beam. According to the cross-sectional size of the main
beam end, the average air velocity of the main beam end is about
1.1 m/s. Consequently, when the air velocity is greater than or
equal to 1.1 m/s, dust will flow together with air and no diffusion
against the air flow direction will occur, which means no dust will
diffuse into the tunnel.
Fig. 15 illustrates the dust collection efficiency under different
exhausting air flow quantities. When the exhausting air flow quan-
tity is limited within 7.2 m3/s, the dust collection efficiency
increases rapidly with the increase of the exhausting air flow quan-
tity; when the exhausting air flow quantity is above 7.2 m3/s, the
increase rate decreases apparently and the dust collection effi-
ciency reaches the peak at 9.6 m3/s; when the exhausting air flow
quantity reaches 12 m3/s, the increase rate is even negative. The
reason for this is that a vortex occurs in the front of the main beam
due to the change in the cross-sectional size, which plays an
important role in affecting the influence of exhausting air flow
quantity on dust collection efficiency. Fig. 16 illustrates the vortex
in the front of the main beam when the exhausting air flow quan-
tity is 4.8 m3/s (Fig. 16a) and 12 m3/s (Fig. 16b). It can be seen from
Fig. 16 that the vortex grows up with the increase of the exhaust-
ing air flow quantity and prevents air from entering the cutterhead
and carrying dust into the scrubber. Fig. 17 illustrates the dust con-
centration distribution in the front of the main beam and the cut-
terhead when the exhausting air flow quantity is 4.8 m3/s (Fig. 17a)
and 12 m3/s (Fig. 17b). From the figure, it can be observed that
when the exhausting air flow quantity is 4.8 m3/s, dust is mainly
concentrated above the belt conveyor due to the air flow in the
 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78 77

Fig. 14. Comparison of dust concentration distribution between an exhausting air flow quantity of 0 and 2.4 m3/s.

cutterhead, making a contribution to carrying dust into the scrub-

ber, but dust is mainly concentrated in the front of the cutterhead
(the dash line area) when the exhausting air flow quantity
increases to 12 m3/s, which makes it hard for dust to be collected
by the scrubber. Therefore, although the exhausting air flow
quantity in the latter case is much larger than that in the former
case, the dust collection efficiency has not been significantly
improved. Accordingly, the optimum exhausting air flow quantity
is 9.6 m3/s (40% of the ventilation air flow quantity).

6. Conclusions

In this study, the three-dimensional steady air flow model, dust

Fig. 15. Dust collection efficiencies under different exhausting air flow quantities.
flow model and other related flow characteristic equation models
were established by considering the dust production mechanism
of TBM construction with the aim of investigating the characteris-
tics of the ventilation and dust suppression system for the open-
type TBM tunneling work area in a Ø8.53 diversion project.

Fig. 16. Vortex in the front of main beam: (a) exhausting air flow quantity is 4.8 m3/s; (b) exhausting air flow quantity is 12 m3/s.

Fig. 17. Dust concentration distribution in main beam and cutterhead (kg/m3): (a) exhausting air flow quantity is 4.8 m3/s; (b) exhausting air flow quantity is 12 m3/s.
78 Y. Xia et al. / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 56 (2016) 70–78
The corresponding CFD model was established with CFD soft-
ware, and its effectiveness was validated through the comparison
between air velocity test data and simulation predicted. Then
based on this model, the impacts of the main vent location, the
air baffle length in the main beam and the exhausting air flow
quantity on flow field distribution and dust flow behavior in the
open-type TBM tunneling work area were studied.
The results show: (a) an appropriate increase in the distance
between inlet1 and the working face can reduce the size of mini-
mum air velocity area, which will improve the ventilation effi-
ciency. Nevertheless, if the distance is too far, a low air velocity
area will occur after 25 m from the working face where the air
velocity cannot meet the ventilation requirements. Taken together,
a distance of 70–80 m away from the working face is the best loca-
tion of inlet1 for ventilation; (b) the dust collection efficiency
increases with the increase of the air baffle length. When the air
baffle is as long as the TBM main beam, the dust collection effi-
ciency is the highest, reaching 89.4%; (c) due to the generation of
vortex in the front of the TBM main beam, the dust collection effi-
ciency first increases and then decreases with the increase of the
exhausting air flow quantity. The optimum exhausting air flow
quantity is 9.6 m3/s (40% of the ventilation air flow quantity)
where the highest dust collection efficiency is achieved.
Acknowledgments
The work was carried out by School of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering and the department of Mechanical Engineering, Cen-
tral South University, China. This research was supported by the
National High Technology Research and Development Program of
China (2012AA041801).
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