Optimization Scheme for Construction Ventilation in Large-Scale Underground Oil Storage Caverns

Abstract

The ventilation effect has a direct influence on the efficiency and security of the construction of an underground cavern group. Traditional forced ventilation schemes may be ineffective and result in resource wastage. Based on the construction ventilation of the Jinzhou underground oil storage project, an axial flow gallery ventilation mode using shafts as the fresh air inlet was proposed. A 3D steady RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) approach with the RNG (Renormalization-group) k-ε turbulence model was used to study airflow behavior and hazardous gas dispersion when different ventilation schemes were employed. Field test values of the air velocity and CO concentration in the main cavern and construction roadway were also adopted to validate the RNG k-ε turbulence model. The results showed that the axial flow gallery ventilation mode can ensure that the direction of air flow is the same as that of heavy trucks, fresh air is always near the excavation face, and the disturbance of the construction process is greatly reduced. The scheme is suitable for large-scale caverns with a ventilation distance less than 2 km, and an intermediate construction shaft is not needed. When the ventilation distance exceeds 2 km, it is possible to use jet fans to assist the axial flow gallery ventilation mode or to completely adopt jet-flow gallery ventilation.