PRACTICAL VENTILATION NETWORK ANALYSIS BY THE IMPROVED NODE POTENTIAL METHOD.

The present paper describes the improved node potential method that can be put into practical use for the ventilation network analysis of mines. Firstly, it is shown that the basic equations for the node potential method are much simpler than those for the mesh method as represented by the Hardy-Cross method and that a computer program using the node potential method can be easily manipulated to solve complicated ventilation networks. Secondly, an improved procedure is introduced for speeding up the computation, as the main drawback which has made this method impractical, up until now, has been the long execution time for calculation. Finally, this improved node potential method is applied to an actual ventilation network in a coal mine and it is demonstrated that the method can be used as a practical one for ventilation network analysis in mines, the calculation time being only several minutes on a personal computer.