Air renewal times and ventilation rate calculations for underground workings using radioactive measurement

Potential alpha emitters are of prime concern to the ventilation engineer due to their rapid concentration increasing once radon released in the mine atmosphere, causing tissue irradiation and lung cancer. Studying of the time based variations of the natural ventilation in tunnels and their relationship to the external parameters contribute to the air circulation assessment. Due to the continuous and high fluctuation of the meteorological conditions affecting the air circulation and intensity through the underground workings, there is a difficulty in the natural ventilation assessment by only the ordinary meteorological measurements. So, in this paper, the possibility of using the radioactive measurements, allowing for the air aging and ventilation quality to be qualified, is investigated through three different underground structures. Referring to the most confined structure of them, results show that one structure has a better exchange rate by a factor 1.8 and the other has the best rate by a factor 2.1. This parameter can be linked to the operating costs and size of a future ventilation system.