An Australian engineer will address a global delegation in Montreal, Canada on a radical new ventilation innovation that will provide significant power savings.
Minetek chief engineer Remy Bourcier will address delegates at the two-day North American Mine Ventilation Symposium (NAMVS) 2019 in Montreal, Canada.
Bourcier’s paper on Minetek’s New Secondary Mine Vent Fan Design is highly anticipated – largely because of the significant power bill savings, heightened workplace safety and adherence to compliance gained during in situ tests at Australian mines.
As Bourcier explains, the main reason Minetek’s Secondary Mine Ventilation solution garners so much attention is because nobody has ever actually identified this aspect of underground mining as something that is able to be impacted in such a positive way.
“It is safe to say there was a level of incumbency in attitude towards secondary mine ventilation, without the thinking that a new and different fan development could bring much better worker safety conditions as well as a huge 50% OPEX savings,” Bourcier said.
“My paper is all about explaining to the major players in underground mine operations just how easy this is to do and also to quantify the returns for them.
“Ultimately, this customised solution ensures industry compliance at all levels.”
Essentially, Bourcier’s paper will educate delegates on how high output axial flow fans combined with control and sensors deliver what is being recognised as a real hands-free system to raise the quality of ventilation delivery in underground mines.
“My paper will put into perspective how this performance-on-demand solution vastly reduced energy costs, improves air quantity at the face, provides top control, automatically senses and tracks to adjust to real-time demand, removes blast dust, reduces noise – all with high level industry compliance,” he said.
“This is a generation leap from the high-maintenance variable speed drives which until now had provided some level of control to the air flow in secondary ventilation systems.
“Various studies point out that between 42%- 49% of a mine’s energy costs are consumed by mine ventilation, with the figure of about 27% attributed to the cost of secondary ventilation alone.
“It is expected this technology will save millions of dollars a year to the average mine.”