In the mining industry, Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NLHL) affects 90% of miners by age 50. Continuous Miners (CMs) are some of the loudest machines and reducing the noise would significantly reduce NIHL. The project approach was to achieve noise reduction by targeting a major noise source on the CM, the coal dust scrubber system. The goal was to completely redesign the fan (rotor and stator) of the CM scrubber system for reduced noise while maintaining the required dust collection performance. Significant noise reductions were made using modern computation tools and technologies by selecting an appropriately matched rotor and stator blade count, increasing the spacing between the rotor and stator, reducing the stator chord length, and designing new airfoils for both the rotor and stator. The new advanced CM fan design was predicted to produce 20 dB less noise while producing the same flow rate and same pressure rise (head) required for dust collection. The entire 20 dB noise reduction may not be observed due to other dominant noise sources such as inflow distortion noise. Addressing inflow distortion is the subject of ongoing work with NIOSH and Joy Mining where the advanced fan design from this paper will be tested.
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