Monitoring the thermal and gaseous activity of coal waste dumps

Abstract

Mine waste dumps are lasting landscape elements of mining impact areas, and several aspects of their negative influence on the environment are currently being considered. The presence of coal substances in the dump mass often leads to fire hazards. Therefore, monitoring plays an important role in preventing fires in spoil tips. This study presents a modern method for monitoring fire hazards in coal waste dumps. The thermal monitoring of large dumps requires the identification of the thermal conditions of a considerable area. Therefore, land scanning was conducted using a precise thermal imaging camera during aerial travel. Subsequently, at selected sites in a waste dump, a wireless system consisting of perforated pipes and probes with temperature and gas collectors was deployed to collect data from research wells. A numerical model considering features that may have the greatest impact on the endogenous fire phenomenon in spoil tip mass was developed. Model studies were conducted using computational fluid mechanics (CFD) tools for the adopted initial–boundary conditions and atmospheric parameters.