Experiment and Numerical Simulation Study on a Structure System of Smoke Control for Refuge Chamber in Mines

A structure system of the smoke control for the refuge chamber was proposed to improve the smoke control ability of a refuge chamber in mines. The system of the smoke prevention consisted of the front chamber of the pressurized air supply system in front of the refuge chamber and a section of the roadway with the capacity of the smoke extraction. Due to the air barrier of the front chamber and the effect of smoke extraction of the roadway, the flue gas was blocked into the chamber. An approach to a small-scale model experiment and numerical simulation was adopted to verify the feasibility of the system. Besides, its impact on the smoke prevention of the positive pressure front chamber and the smoke extraction of the roadway was discussed by changing the wind speed of the outlet at top of the positive pressure front chamber. The results show that blowback air flow in the formation of the supply of the front chamber can effectively prevent smoke from invading the refuge chamber and reducing the temperature of the flue gas in the roadway. Under the condition of the smoke extraction wind speed 4 m/s and that the wind speed of the delivery outlet was greater than that of the exhaust outlet, the maximum temperature of flue gas was 10 ℃ to 30 ℃ smaller than that of the delivery outlet. When the positive values increased at the delivery outlet, negative ones at the outlet of the smoke extraction also increased. It indicated that supplying air can promote the smoke extraction by way of expanding the positive pressure.