From a safety point of view , ventilation is a critical service that an underground mine requires to operate . For leading provider Howden , this takes the form of mine ventilation with its Ventsim™ CONTROL system installed in mines worldwide .
Ventsim™ DESIGN – adopted by over 1,500 mines – is the most popular mine ventilation software in the world . This comprehensive software package integrates mine and tunnel ventilation data with hardware devices to enable the design and testing of ventilation circuits , including critical factors such as airflow , pressure , heat , gases , power , radon , fire , and various other ventilationrelated information .
One of these mines , the South Deep Mine located in Gauteng , South Africa , is one of the largest gold mines in the world . It has partnered with Howden to implement its cutting-edge Ventsim™ CONTROL system , which will help ensure a safe working environment while reducing energy consumption . By integrating the ventilation modelling of the mine with a versatile control system and advanced control strategies , Ventsim™ CONTROL offers a comprehensive solution for monitoring , controlling , and optimising underground mine ventilation .
“ Anything that impacts production in the mine is an issue , and there ' s the safety component as well . At certain temperatures , people can ' t work or they need to have modified work schedules . So , with all the data that we ' re already gathering , we can then use this data to build models and train them to accurately predict the optimum setpoint , based on the location that people will be mining ,” explains José Pinedo , Ventsim Sales Manager at Howden .
20-50 % Reduction in mining operations planning time
5-10 % Reduction in overall maintenance costs
The capability of remotely and autonomously controlling ventilation devices enables operators to monitor the subterranean mine environment in real-time and promptly respond to changing conditions . “ Everything that the software is doing is captured in a database , and , as of right now , we can trend that data to generate graphs , and we can then import that into a CSV .
“ Having that business intelligence side of the reporting is going to help immensely with the people that are using this on a dayto-day basis ,” Pinedo concludes .
46 May 2023