Air safety in mining at Nornickel’s Polar Division

Nornickel’s Polar Division (Company) carries out a regular-basis research in the field of mine ventilation and succeeds in enhancing efficiency of mineral extraction with the simultaneous improvement of safety of mining operations. In the conditions of highlevel mechanization of mining operations at Company’s mines equipped with internal combustion engine-driven machines, it becomes highly important to analyze air risks and their reduction during mining. At the same time, introduction of new developments should promote enhanced economic efficiency of production. The authors review the long-term research into mine ventilation at the Company. Advanced engineering solutions on improvement of ventilation quality in mines are described. In particular, the article presents the studies on the mine air composition dynamics in case of sequential ventilation of workspaces of machines driven by internal combustion engines when they move along the main air roadways and operate in production areas. It is shown that organizational and engineering arrangements make it possible to ensure the air quality in conformity with the industrial safety standards in all mine openings and in main areas of travel and operation of the internal combustion engine-driven machines. Safety and economic efficiency of blind stoping is investigated and justified. Specifics of blind stopes consists in impossibility of laying a ventilation pipeline in the stopes because of unavailability of roof support and roof control in such stopes. The dynamic measurements and the data of modeling of air processes in blind stopes with the cross-section more than 60 m2 are presented. The measures are developed to ensure compliance with the air quality standards at workpoints of operators of the internal combustion engine-driven machines. The solutions are proposed to provide allowable level of air risk at the preserved efficiency of economic performance.The study was carried out with partially financial support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation under state assignment (No. NIOKTR: 124020500030-7).