Propagation of fires along mine workings: criteria and limits
Underground fires account for over 50% of the accidents occuring in Soviet mines. Their prevention therefore occupies a central place in mine rescue practice and accident prevention. The general features of the physical processes occurring during propagation of a flame have been studied in some detail. Attempts have been made to describe underground fires on the basis of experimental data. However, it is not yet possible to make accurate preductions of the behavior of fires in mine workings: very many factors influence their development. The dynamics of spread of a flame along a working involves such diverse phenomena as heat transfer by thermal conduction, radiation, and convection, transfer of oxygen and combustible gaseous components by draughts and diffusion, various chemical reactions on the surface of combustible materials and within the flames, and finally complex surface effects accompanying heat and mass transfer at interfaces between media. In addition, we must take account of the specific conditions prevailing in a mine - the complex geometrical configuration of the workings, the nonuniformity of the combustible materials, and the role of ventilation and its instability during fires. There can be many approaches to the study of such a many-sided process. The most promising lines seem to be those in which experimental models of the complex of possible phenomena are combined with mathematical models of the process, based on the equations of chemical hydrodynamics, in which the alternative variants are realized on a computer.
- Research Organization:
- All-Union Scientific-Research Inst. of Mine Rescue, Moscow, USSR
- OSTI ID:
- 6277127
- Journal Information:
- Sov. Min. Sci. (Engl. Transl.); (United States), Vol. 14:1; Other Information: Translated from Fiz.-Tekh. Probl. Razrab. Polezn. Iskop.; No. 1, 67-74(Jan 1978)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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