Influence of Barometric Pressure Changes on Ventilation Conditions in Deep Mines

Abstract

Abstract Barometric air pressure and its changes have a critical impact on ventilation conditions in the underground workings of deep mines. Changes in pressure are particularly important because they are responsible for the transient states of ventilation conditions, therefore, assessing the scale of pressure change is essential. Unfortunately, previously for many years in the Polish mining industry barometric pressure was recorded only on tapes of mechanical barographs by the ventilation department on the surface and therefore such dependencies of methane concentration due to barometric pressure changes have not been properly documented. Today, after the implementation in mines of instruments enabling the monitoring of absolute pressure in the workings of mines (Wasilewski, 2009) the conditions have been created to study the influence of pressure changes on changes of air parameters in the mine workings. Barometric pressure changes were observed and recorded over a course of approximately two years using monitoring system that utilized high accuracy pressure sensors on the surface and in selected workings of an underground mine. This paper presents a statistical analysis of the data that we generated from assessing pressure changes on the surface and at selected underground points in the mine. In the article, which presents the results of the first part of the study, some examples of when significant changes in pressure prior to the tragic events, which were not accompanied by changes in the methane concentration in mine workings, will also be shown. Interestingly, we found that the relationship between methane ignitions and explosions in longwall gob mined via the cave-in method is associated with changes in the barometric pressure. Several instances of methane ignitions and explosions in the gob of cave-in longwalls in recent years were compared with background barometric pressure changes. Research carried out in within the strategic project “Improving work safety in the mines” allowed to record air parameters changes inside the gob of longwalls and show the influence of pressure changes on changes in methane and oxygen concentration in the gob, which will be shown in the second part of the article to be published in the near future.