The Design and Installation of a Booster Fan at Tahmoor Colliery

摘要

Booster fans are relatively rare in Australian coal mines. However, as mines become progressivelydeeper it is likely that such fans will be increasingly adopted as a method to sustain or improvethe ventilation of underground workings. The reasons why booster fans may be an att ractivealternative include: increased cost of sinking additional ventilation shafts with greater seamdepths; environmental objections to shaft sinking projects; and increasing urbanisation and surfaceconstraints limiting availability of potential ventilation shaft sites. As Tahmoor Colliery movedinto its northern lease the ventilation constraints became the limiting factor on production. Thelimitations of the old workings meant that the existing ventilation system would be inadequateto sustain the required production. Extensive ventilation modelling was carried out to evaluatevarious potential solutions and the recommended option was the installation of a booster fanor fans, to gain underground access to an already approved shaft site in the northern lease.Proposals were sought from recognised fan manufacturers and various alternative arrangementswere tendered. Ultimately the choice was between one large centrifugal fan and a set (three orfour) of smaller ‘auxiliary-like’ fans in parallel. The successful tender was for a single centrifugal,an arrangement very similar to the booster fans that have been operating eff ectively at WestcliffColliery for a number of years. This paper describes the current ventilation network, evaluation ofthe ventilation options, the fan selection process, and the project status to date.