Fire behavior of mining vehicles in underground hard rock mines

The results from a number of investigations and fire experiments are presented and analyzed in order to characterize the fire behavior of mining vehicles in underground hard rock mines. The analysis also includes fire safety and fire protection measures with respect to the mining vehicle fire behavior. Earlier studies on fires in underground hard rock mines have shown that vehicles or mobile equipment are the dominant sources of fire. A better knowledge about the fire behavior of vehicles in underground hard rock mines is therefore needed. During the analysis the direction and flow rate of the ventilation in a drift was found to have a significant impact on the fire behavior, causing for example flame tilt with rapid fire spread. The shielded sections of a vehicle will be less affected by the ventilation flow resulting in for example a decreased flame spread. It was also found that spray fires may result in considerable heat release rate but are generally of shorter duration and will not make any significant contributions to the overall heat release rate of the fully developed vehicle fire. The fire duration of a loader tire from a full-scale fire experiment was found to be at least 200 min and will largely determine the total fire duration of the vehicle. A different scenario with different conditions with for example a slower flame spread resulted in an even longer fire duration. The radiative and convective fraction will be a key factor when determining the heat transfer mechanisms involved in a fire and will vary from material to material. Calculations show that the radiative fraction of the tire fires on two mining vehicles is significantly lower than found in earlier experiments. The design and construction of the mining vehicle will have an important impact on the fire behavior and could possibly mitigate the consequences of a fire and allow fire personnel to extinguish a fire that otherwise would have had a too high heat release rate.