Energy efficiency of modern underground mine ventilation control strategies: A critical review of research findings
Underground mine ventilation serves both as a critical safety system and as one of the major consumers of electrical energy in underground mining operations. This paper presents a critical review of the energy performance of ventilation management strategies, focusing on ventilation network optimization, fan speed control, Ventilation-on-Demand (VoD), model-based control, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications, and sensor-based monitoring. The review is organized according to the level of intervention and validation, encompassing industrial measurements, pilot-scale and laboratory studies, as well as numerical simulations. The findings indicate that direct energy savings are most commonly achieved through the reduction of network resistance and pressure losses, fan speed adjustment, and the spatial and temporal alignment of airflow distribution with actual operational requirements. CFD analyses and monitoring systems do not constitute energy-saving measures by themselves; rather, they provide the basis for defining safe operating limits and enabling closed-loop control strategies. Reported energy savings are not directly comparable due to differences in baseline operating conditions, system boundaries, and validation methodologies. Reliable implementation requires the maintenance of minimum safety airflow rates, the provision of backup safety measures, and automatic transition to predefined safe operating modes in the event of sensor, communication, or actuator failures.