Underground Cooling Plant Design Fundamentals - Melissa Brown, P.Eng; Darryl Witow, P.Eng.

The mining industry is continuing to develop new, deeper mines and is expanding existing mines to deeper ore bodies. Deeper mines present many ventilation and heat-related challenges. This can include limitations on the amount of cooling that can be delivered to the workplace with surface refrigeration plants. For deep mines, an underground refrigeration plant can be a viable option to achieve target workplace temperature criteria. However, underground refrigeration plants can present unique challenges in comparison to traditional surface plants.

This workshop aims to discuss key fundamentals for underground refrigeration plant design including: high temperature condenser cooling, layout/excavation optimization and water treatment considerations. Application to hard rock mine case studies will discussed.