A new approach to detect fire source underground mine for preventing spontaneous combustion of sulfide ores

Spontaneous combustion of sulfide ores has become a very severe disaster that affects the sustainable development of national economy in China. In order to achieve a more efficient approach to detect accurately fire source of spontaneous combustion underground mine so that the fire disaster can be prevented as early as possible, a model of heat transfer was proposed and using the thermal infrared imager to detect spontaneous ignition of sulfide ores was designed. The simulation results of thermal modeling show when closing to self-ignition duration and the detective depth is 1 m, the maximum temperature difference is corresponding 2.78 ∘C in the scope of 1 m×1 m; Under the same condition, the maximum temperature differences are 4.23 ∘C and 5.25 ∘C respectively in the scope of 1.5 m×1.5 m and 2 m×2 m. The larger the detection zone is, the higher the temperature difference will be. For those reasons, a detection system of the fire source of spontaneous combustion was studied on the basis of IRI-1011 thermal infrared imager to analyze temperature anomalies recorded. The results of field practice show that the detection approach can be applied for develop a new detection system of the fire source of spontaneous combustion.