Analysis of security parameters specific to coal mines

National Institute for Research and Development in Mine Safety and Protection to Explosion – INCD INSEMEX Petroșani, Romania

^* Corresponding author: cornel.boanta@insemex.ro

Abstract

Coal continues to remain a basic energy source for industry, but the impact on the environment and underground security resulting from its extraction and use must be given ever-increasing attention. Ecological impact analysis is currently the most powerful tool for preventing pollution and environmental degradation, respectively for underground security, in any project related to coal mining. The current trend of restricting mining activity in more productive perimeters, but far from the main connections with the surface, implies a substantial increase in the demand for ventilation systems due to underground pollutants and implicitly the continuously increasing risk factors. The particularly complex conditions and with major implications in the security levels of mining operations require the objectification of control by monitoring security parameters, through systems, installations, devices and modern automatic programs in parallel with the manual control system with modern portable devices. The paper analyzes the possibility of monitoring security parameters related to the environment, mine fires and degassing installations specific to mining operations in the Valea Jiului coal basin, in order to remove several risk factors that endanger underground mining. The main safety parameters analyzed refer to the underground environment, endogenous fires and degassing of coal seams. The parameters that are followed in order to assess the efficiency of the degassing networks are: the depression in the degassing network, the methane concentration of the captured gas and the methane flow from the network.