Airflow adjustment and minimization of the air power of ventilation network

It is often required to know which roadway (adjustment roadway) resistances and how much values of the resistances should be changed to make the airflow rates in roadways (target roadways) to certain required values in the practice of mine ventilation. In this case, the airflow rates of the target roadways and the resistances of the roadways other than the adjustment roadways are the given conditions and the resistances of the adjustment roadways are the solutions to be found. No straightforward method to solve the problem has been found up to now. Therefore, trial and error method using the ventilation network analysis program is utilized to solve the problem so far. The method takes long calculation time and the best answer is not necessarily obtained. The authors newly defined "airflow element" as an element of the ventilation network analysis. The resistances that satisfy the airflow requirements can be calculated straight forwardly by putting the function of the airflow element into the ventilation network analysis. The air power required for the ventilation can be minimized while meeting the airflow requirements by the advanced application of the method. The authors made the computer program fulfill the method. The program was applied to actual ventilation network and it was found that the method is very practical and the time required for the analysis is short.