U.S. researchers to study probability, hazards of fire risks in coal mines

Two teams of researchers at West Virginia University (WVU) are looking to enhance the coal mine safety by creating a knowledge base and computational model capable of quantifying the probability and associated hazards of spontaneous ignition, fire and explosion.

Recent coal mine-related deaths in West Virginia and Turkey are among the incidents that reconfirm the modern safety standards of the industry do not provide an acceptable level of risk, notes a statement issued last week by WVU.

Funded by a grant from the Alpha Foundation for the Improvement of Mine Safety and Health, the research will look at the evolution and triggers of particle-air combustion.

“There has been a lack of fundamental understanding of turbulent burning and combustion instabilities, even in a simple case of a homogenous, gaseous environment,” says V’yacheslav Akkerman, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, who will lead the research.

“Our goal will be to develop a computational platform to analyze combustion triggering, dynamics and velocities in gaseous and particulate turbulent environment,” Akkerman explains.

“The model will account for such state-of-the-art effects of turbulent combustion as flame-flow feedback and turbulence-instability coupling in the presence of combustible dust,” he notes. “Our final aim is to provide a descriptive scenario of an accidental explosion/fire in such a configuration.”

Akkerman will work in partnership with Ali Rangwala, an associate professor of fire protection engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). WPI’s role in the proposal will be to perform the experiments needed for the research.

“Development of a numerical model necessitates a fundamental experimental platform for input parameter estimations as well as validation,” Akkerman says, adding that both types of experiments will be carried out at Rangwala’s Combustion Laboratory at WPI.