A mine water supply system includes a set of engineering devices (pump stations, pipelines, tanks, fire auto-spray pipelines, reducing valves, gate valves, and fire hydrants) and is designed to ensure fire protection, mineral production technology, and sanitary-hygienic and safe working conditions for miners. Empirical evidence shows, however, that water supply systems of most mining industry facilities often do not provide their technological functions.
The results of analysis of regulatory and methodological documentation lead to a conclusion that today the methodology of calculating the required water flow rate for the mine needs has a number of flaws. In addition, the existing software products used for hydraulic calculations do not consider the non-stationarity of mass transfer in a mining network of pipelines, which is conditioned by the nature of mining operations. The flaws of regulatory, methodological, and software support in determining the required water flow rate for the mine needs, calculation of fire auto-spray pipelines’ parameters, and their operation indicate the necessity of conducting studies and developing engineering solutions.
Therefore, in the present article, a methodology for experimental studies of a mine water supply system has been developed. The volume and the procedure of the study have been substantiated considering the unique conditions of operating mines. As a result, based on the examination of the fire auto-spray pipelines’ network using the example of a polymetallic mine, observation data characterizing the state of its water supply system and specifics of its operation that affect both the safety and the efficiency of workflows have been gathered.
The obtained results will serve as a basis for the development of the required water flow rate calculation methodology for the mine’s needs, mathematical model parametrization of mine pipeline network, and mass transfer hydrodynamic process modeling in order to establish the patterns of their flow to increase the efficiency of water supply system in underground working areas.
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