Artificial ground freezing of underground mines in cold regions using thermosyphons with air insulation

作     者：Ahmad F.Zueter Mohammad Zolfagharroshan Navid Bahrani Agus P.Sasmito Ahmad F.Zueter;Mohammad Zolfagharroshan;Navid Bahrani;Agus P.Sasmito

作者机构：Department of Civil and Resource EngineeringDalhousie UniversityHalifax B3H4R2Canada Department of Mining EngineeringMcGill UniversityMontreal H3A0E8Canada 

出 版 物：《International Journal of Mining Science and Technology》 (矿业科学技术学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2024年第34卷第5期

页      面：643-654页

核心收录：

学科分类：081901[工学-采矿工程] 0819[工学-矿业工程] 08[工学] 

基　　金：Killam Postdoctoral Trust at Dalhousie University 

主　　题：Artificial ground freezing Underground mining Sustainable mining Thermosyphon Air insulation Cold regions 

摘      要：Current practice of underground artificial ground freezing(AGF)typically involves huge refrigeration systems of large economic and environmental *** this study,a novel AGF technique is proposed deploying available cold wind in cold *** is achieved by a static heat transfer device called thermosyphon equipped with an air insulation layer.A refrigeration unit can be optionally integrated to meet additional cooling *** introduction of air insulation isolates the thermosyphon from ground zones where freezing is not needed,resulting in:(1)steering the cooling resources(cold wind or refrigeration)towards zones of interest;and(2)minimizing refrigeration *** design is demonstrated using well-validated mathematical models from our previous work based on two-phase enthalpy method of the ground coupled with a thermal resistance network for the *** Canadian mines are considered:the Cigar Lake Mine and the Giant *** results show that our proposed design can speed the freezing time by 30%at the Giant Mine and by two months at the Cigar Lake ***,a cooling load of 2.4 GWh can be saved at the Cigar Lake ***,this study provides mining practitioners with sustainable solutions of underground AGF.