International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 781–784

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International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

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

Prediction of airway resistance in panel cave mines using

a discrete and continuum model
Kayode M. Ajayi a,⇑, Khosro Shahbazi a, Purushotham Tukkaraja b, Kurt Katzenstein c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, SDSMT, Rapid City, SD 57701, USA
b
Department of Mining Engineering and Management, SDSMT, SD 57701, USA
c
Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, SDSMT, SD 57701, USA

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

Article history: The configuration of an airway (or production drift) in panel cave mines is different from the typical
Received 12 April 2018 (straight) mine airway designs. The drawpoints are connected to the airway (cross-cuts), which allows
Received in revised form 24 November 2018 airflow from the cave into the airway or air loss from the airway into the cave due to the ventilation
Accepted 28 February 2019
approach and cave porosity. These affect airflow in the production drifts, but it is difficult to investigate
Available online 6 March 2019
these conditions from field or laboratory scaled studies. Therefore, this study develops discrete and con-
tinuum computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models to study the effects of the ventilation approach and
Keywords:
cave porosity on the airway resistance. Our findings show that: with active undercut ventilation, a unique
Airway resistance
Caving mining method
resistance model is required for the airway in panel cave mines; and an increase in cave porosity
Panel cave mines decreases the drift’s resistance. These findings provide essential tools for a panel cave ventilation design.
Broken rocks Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology. This is an open
Porous media access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

1. Introduction
Panel caving is a bulk/massive underground mining method in
which new drawpoints are developed continuously as the caving
progresses [1–3]. Unlike in block caving, the development of new
drawbell continues even when the cave is developed, hence the
undercut drift might be active as shown in Fig. 1. Therefore, both
the production and undercut drift must be ventilated until the
undercut drift is fully enveloped by the cave. Hence, the ventilation
of a fully developed cave is classified into two stages: the first stage
with undercut ventilation and the second stage without the under-
cut ventilation. When the undercut ventilation is active, airflow
through the production drift is a combination of flow through
the drifts and the porous broken rocks due to the layout of the pro-
duction drifts.
As shown in Fig. 1, the spheres are used to represent broken
rocks inside the cave.
The most common layouts of the production drift are the El
Teniente and Offset Herringbone layouts with drawpoints devel-
oped with the airway similar to cross-cuts (Fig. 2) [4,5]. These
drawpoints create openings for airflow into the drifts or outflow
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical Engineering, South Dakota
School of Mines and Technology, 501 E Saint Joseph Street, Rapid City, SD 57701,
USA.
E-mail address: kayode.ajayi@mines.sdsmt.edu (K.M. Ajayi).
into the cave based on the ventilation approach. This affects the
airway resistance and requires further investigation. However,
the dynamics of the caving process limits the application of field
or laboratory scaled model. Hence, studies have applied computa-
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) as a tool to investigate ventilation in
cave mines [5,6]. Therefore, this study develops discrete and con-
tinuum CFD models to investigate the effect of undercut ventila-
tion and cave porosity on the airway resistance. For the discrete
model, the rocks are represented as large spheres and packed using
cubic and Orthorhombic (geometric arrangement with three
unequal axes at right angles) packing [7]. The continuum model
is a replica of the discrete model, however, we represented the
rocks with an existing porous media model. This is used to inves-
tigate the effects of differing porosity magnitude and verify results
from the discrete model. Section 2.0 describes the models, the
boundary conditions, and the approach for predicting the airway
resistance; section 3.0 presents the result; section 4.0 verifies the
findings with an analytical model; and section 5.0 presents the
conclusions.
2. Research approach
The discrete and continuum models are developed in AutoCAD
2015, and analyzed using a commercial computational fluid
dynamics software, SC/Tetra developed by Cradle (V13). The

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2019.02.004
2095-2686/Ó 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
782 K.M. Ajayi et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 781–784
Fig. 1. Schematic of a developed panel cave.
Fig. 2. Schematics of El Teniente layout and offset.
discrete model is comprised of 7 different large sphere sizes, based
on cave height to avoid the computational limitations of resolving
small particles [8]. Fig. 3 shows a plan view of the discrete model
with a schematic of the boundary conditions, and the flow direc-
tion. Fig. 4 shows a plan view of the continuum model, which is
a replica of the discrete model, but the cave is represented as a por-
ous media in SC/Tetra. The model considers three production drifts
and one undercut drift (Fig. 4). The undercut drift and production
drifts are modeled as 4.3 m by 4.3 m; the drawbells are modeled
20.6 m apart (center to center); and the production drifts are mod-
eled 30.5 m apart (center to center). The undercut drift supports
the inflow and outflow of air as highlighted in Fig. 3. This is due
to the continuous development of new drawpoints in panel caving,
which collapses a significant part of the undercut drift. Therefore,
an overlying duct (1 m
1 m), usually in form of an airbag, is used
for airflow into the undercut drift and air flows out through the
main undercut opening. The cave height is 127 m, the airways
are 170 m long, and the drawbells are oriented at 56° to the pro-
duction drift based on the El-Teniente layout. Based on the design,
there are 7, 13, and 6 draw points intersecting the first, second, and
third drifts respectively as shown in Fig. 4. Using different levels of
refinement, we conducted a mesh dependence study to ensure the
results are grid independent.
A transient analysis is conducted for both models and the
results are analyzed after 9 h, which is representative of a mine
operation shift. The flow at the undercut inlet (duct) and produc-
tion drift’s inlet is assumed turbulent and fully developed at entry.
We used the k-e turbulence model, and calculated the appropriate
kinetic energy (k) and kinetic dissipation rate (e) at the airflow inlet
of the drifts. Although air flow velocity through the cave might be
Fig. 3. Plan view of the discrete model with boundary conditions and airflow
direction indicated by the arrows.
Fig. 4. Plan view of the continuum model.
relatively low, SC/Tetra solves the k-e equations and a significantly
lower value of k and e is observed in most regions inside the cave.
In cases where specific regions are specified as porous media, SC/
Tetra adds a pressure loss term to the momentum equation solved
[9].
We investigated both ventilation approaches for a developed
cave: with and without the undercut ventilation. The initial tem-
perature of the model is 24 °C and the energy equation is solved;
the three production drifts are ventilated each with 23.5 m3/s;
and an air volume flow rate of 17 m3/s is assigned to the undercut
inlet duct. A natural outflow condition is assigned to the produc-
tion drift outlets and top of the cave. The undercut outlet is usually
connected to an exhaust fan, so this condition is represented with a
velocity outlet condition. A fan with constant volume flow rate of
2 m3/s is installed in the cave to facilitate the natural outflow of
air from the top of the cave. The walls of the production drift are
modeled with an Atkinson friction factor, k = 0.00945 kg/m3, mea-
sured from a field which incorporates both shock and friction
losses [10].
In certain cases, some ore deposits contain traces of uranium,
which releases radon into the mine workings. We considered a uni-
form radon flux of 2.5 Bq/m2/s from the sphere surfaces for the dis-
crete model [11]. Based on the cubic packing used for the discrete
model, we assigned a porosity of 47% for the continuum model
using the particle porous media model in SC/Tetra. The average
particle size is assigned as 2.63 m with a shape factor of 1. To
investigate the second stage without the undercut ventilation, no
flow is assigned to the undercut intake duct and outlet.
The effect of the undercut ventilation is investigated by com-
paring the pressure drop model with existing models. The com-
monly used pressure drop model for an incompressible turbulent
flow is the square law equation:
Dp ¼ RQ 2 ð1Þ
where Dp is the pressure drop, Pa; Q the air volume flow rate, m /s;
3
and R the Atkinson’s resistance of the airway (Ns2/m8) calculated
as:
kLP
R¼ ð2Þ
A3
where P is the perimeter of the duct, m; k the Atkinson friction fac-
tor; L the length of the airway, m; and A the cross-sectional area of
the duct, m2.
3. Results
3.1. Relationship between pressure drop and airflow
The cave (Fig. 3) is a unique form of porous media. Hence, the
relationship between pressure drop and air volume flow rate for
the airways (or production drift) might be different from the con-
ventional pressure drop model in Eq. (1) [12,13]. Therefore, for
both stages of a fully developed cave (with and without undercut
ventilation), we studied the pressure loss model using both the dis-
crete and continuum models. Using the discrete model with active
undercut ventilation, Fig. 5 shows the static pressure distribution
 K.M. Ajayi et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 781–784 783

through the cave. The undercut ventilation creates a significant

pressure difference between the undercut level, production drifts,
and top of the cave. Hence, the airflow pattern is unique with air
flowing through the drawpoints into the porous cave or air flowing
through the porous cave into the production drifts and top of the
cave. Therefore, the resistance model through the production drift
combines a typical airway resistance model (Eq. (1)) and a typical
porous media model [13–17]. To verify this observation, we stud-
ied the relationship between pressure drop and air volume flow
rate for the drifts using both model. Fig. 6. Plot of pressure drop vs. air volume flow rate with undercut ventilation.
Fig. 6 shows a plot of the pressure drop and air volume flow rate
for the discrete model. The empirical relationships from this plot
are summarized in Table 1. However, these equations are slightly Table 1
different from the typical resistance model in Eq. (1) due to the Comparison of pressure drop equation for model with undercut ventilation.

effect of the air flow through the porous cave. Hence, for this con- Drift Discrete model Continuum model
figuration with active undercut ventilation, a slight modification is First drift Dp = 0.0127Q1.77, R2 = 0.99 Dp = 0.0102Q1.82, R2 = 0.99
required to Eq. (1): Dp ¼ RQ 2f , here f is a parameter that could vary Second drift Dp = 0.0122Q1.81, R2 = 0.99 Dp = 0.0106Q1.85, R2 = 0.99
from 0.85 to 1 based on the porosity of the cave, and unique for Third drift Dp = 0.0106Q1.84, R2 = 0.99 Dp = 0.0099Q1.85, R2 = 0.99
individual drifts. Therefore, for cave mines with active undercut
ventilation, we recommend this study to determine an appropriate
equation for the drift’s ventilation design. We conducted the same
study with the continuum model and compared the empirical
equations with the discrete model Table 1. It is observed that the
equations from the continuum model agrees closely with the dis-
crete model.
Similarly, we repeated the same study for the second stage
(without the undercut ventilation) using the discrete and contin-
uum models. Fig. 7 shows the static pressure distribution through
the cave surface, and it is observed that the pressure distribution is
significantly different from the first stage with undercut ventila-
tion (Fig. 5). Here, the static pressure in the production drift is
Fig. 7. Static pressure distribution for the second stage with no undercut
higher compared to the cave. Hence, in most cases, there is air loss
ventilation using the discrete model.
through the draw points into the cave. Subsequently, we studied
the relationship between pressure drop and air volume flow rate
for the three production drifts, and the empirical equation relation- Table 2
ships are summarized in Table 2. Comparison of pressure drop equation for model without undercut ventilation.
In this case, the equations (discrete and continuum) agree clo- Drift Discrete model Continuum model
sely with the pressure drop model in Eq. (1); hence, there are no
First drift Dp = 0.0052Q , R = 1
1.96 2
Dp = 0.0046Q1.99, R2 = 1
significant changes to the existing model without the undercut Second drift Dp = 0.0053Q1.98, R2 = 1 Dp = 0.0050Q2.00, R2 = 1
ventilation. To further observe the differences in correlations from Third drift Dp = 0.0047Q2.02, R2 = 1 Dp = 0.0047 Q2.01, R2 = 1
Tables 1 and 2, Fig. 8 compares the plot of pressure drop with air
volume flow rate through the second drift with (second_drift)
and without the undercut ventilation (second_drift_nu). It is
observed that the average volume flow rate of air and pressure
drop are slightly higher when the undercut ventilation is active
(second_drift), which affects the resistance models.

3.2. Effect of cave porosity on drift’s resistance

Due to the dynamics related to cave mining, the porosity of the

cave changes as mining progresses and this affects the airflow

Fig. 8. Plot of pressure drop vs. air volume flow rate with undercut ventilation
(second_drift) and without undercut ventilation (second_drift_nu).

pattern. Therefore, we studied the effect of porosity changes on

Fig. 5. Static pressure distribution for the first stage with undercut ventilation
using the discrete model.
the drift’s airflow resistance with and without the undercut venti-
lation. The continuum model is used because it is difficult to obtain
a significant porosity variation using the discrete model as—the
lowest porosity value achieved from the cubic and orthorhombic
packing of spheres of like size are 47.6% and 39.5% respectively.
Therefore, using the discrete model equations from Tables 1 and
2, Fig. 9 shows the plot of the drift’s resistance for different poros-
ity conditions with, and without the undercut ventilation.
784 K.M. Ajayi et al. / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 29 (2019) 781–784
Fig. 9. Comparison of drift resistance with and without the undercut ventilation.
First_drift is with undercut ventilation and first drift_nu is without undercut
ventilation.
With active undercut ventilation in Fig. 9 (first_drift, second_-
drift, and third_drift), the drift’s resistance decreases with increase
in the cave porosity. As the cave porosity increases, there is less
obstruction to airflow and air loss through the drawbells can easily
return into the production drift. Therefore, the airway resistance
decreases as less airflow is trapped within the cave. Similarly, we
repeated the same study without the undercut ventilation as
shown in Fig. 9 (first_drift_nu, second_drift_nu, and third_-
drift_nu). The result follows a similar pattern as the resistance
decreases with increase in porosity. However, the changes are
more significant with active undercut ventilation, which allows
more airflow into the production drift. In addition, it is observed
from Fig. 9 that airflow the resistance values are higher. This is
due to the differences in the Equations used to calculate resistance
from Tables 1 and 2. The power coefficients for Q in Table 1 are
lower and this predicts higher resistance.
As shown in Fig. 9, naming convention: First_drift is with
undercut ventilation and First_drift_nu is without undercut
ventilation.
3.3. Verification
In Section 3.1, we established that the flow through the produc-
tion drifts without the undercut ventilation (second stage) agrees
with the turbulence model in Eq. (1). Hence, Eq. (2) can be used
to predict the resistance of the airway without the undercut venti-
lation. Therefore, to verify our CFD model, we used the general
model in Eq. (2) to predict the drift’s resistance and compare the
values with the resistance value in Table 2. From Eq. (2), the resis-
tance of the airway is calculated as:
0:00945
170

4:3 Ns2
R¼ 3
¼ 0:00437
18:49 m8
By correlating the data from Table 2 with Eq. (1), the resistance
of the first, second, and third drifts are 0.0052, 0.0053, and 0.0047
Ns2/m8 respectively from the discrete model and 0.0046, 0.0050,
and 0.0047 Ns2/m8 respectively from the continuum model, which
is consistent with the CFD results.
4. Conclusions
We investigated two ventilation stages of a fully developed
panel cave: with and without undercut ventilation using discrete
and continuum CFD models. With active undercut ventilation, we
found that: (1) the cave act as a unique form of porous media,
which influences flow through the production drifts such that
the pressure drop model (in the production drifts) does not agree
with either the existing models, hence, a unique model is required
for the ventilation design, which provides opportunities for further
research; and (2) increase in cave porosity decreases the drift’s
resistance to airflow. Without the undercut ventilation, the cave
has less effect on the production drift ventilation as the pressure
drop model agrees with the turbulent model; and increase in cave
porosity decreases the drift’s resistance to airflow. These findings
provide more insight into the ventilation system of cave mine
and serve as a tool for proactively designing the cave mine ventila-
tion system.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
(No. 200-2014-59613) for conducting this research. The data for
this paper are available at https://figshare.com/s/
961c34cc5997338cc9fa.
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