Comprehensive evaluation on self-ignition risks of coal stockpiles using fuzzy AHP approaches

Self-ignition in coal stockpiles is a serious economic, environmental and safety problem. Evaluation is an effective way to identify the self-ignition hazards in implicit environment of coal piles and provides a guide for countermeasures against spontaneous combustion in coal piles. In this paper, a comprehensive evaluation system is proposed. The trapezoidal and the triangular extent fuzzy AHP methods are employed to handle the imprecision and uncertainty of the effects of factors. A coal stockpile stored at the Bulk Cargo Logistics of Tianjin Port of China and three coal piles in the Teruel basins of Spain are studied to demonstrate the validity of the index system and the effectiveness of fuzzy AHP approaches. The evaluated results indicate that the proposed evaluation system and approaches are valid and objective for evaluating self-ignition risks of coal stockpiles; compared with the trapezoidal fuzzy AHP method, the triangular extent fuzzy AHP approach is more effective to evaluate self-ignition risks of coal piles for the priorities of factors impacting self-ignition risks are highlighted by their weight comparisons' calculation using the triangular extent analysis. The comprehensive evaluation system is beneficial to manage self-ignition risks of coal piles from a holistic point of view and to establish an early warming system of self-ignition risks of coal piles.