Numerical Studies of Ventilation Effect on Methane Layering Behaviour in Underground Coal Mines

Layering of methane in underground coal mines owing to poor ventilation leads to methane explosion hazard. We study the methane layering phenomenon and the effect of ventilation on dispersion of methane in underground coal mines at air velocities varying from 0.5 to 4.0 m/s. Three-dimensional simulations using CFD code ANSYS Fluent 12.0 were performed assuming the flow to be unsteady, turbulent and incompressible. The study demonstrated that ventilation significantly affects the behaviour of methane layering and dispersion of methane in underground coal mines. The layering length decreased with increase in air velocity. At air velocity of 4.0 m/s, the methane layering length considerably reduced to a safer level of about 1 m. Moreover, the simulation results showed a good agreement with the experimental results.