A Reliability Allocation Model and Application in Designing a Mine Ventilation System

Abstract– A mine ventilation system is an important component of an underground mining system. It provides a sufficient quantity of air to maintain a suitable working environment. Therefore, the mine ventilation system should be kept at a highly reliable level and also be maintained at a very reliable level during the whole service time of the coal mine. However, in reality, failures of a mine ventilation system do occasionally happen. Most of such failures can result in potential risk for the workers. For example, the insufficient quantity of fresh air to the underground mine working face may lead to the increased concentration of coal gas to the lower flammable limit. Once an ignition source exists, a gas explosion can take place. Hence, some failures become an immediate cause of a mine accident and can cause fatalities and/or property damage. By an in-depth analysis, one of the reasons contributing to the mine ventilation failure is that most systems lack enough technical considerations when they were initially designed. Underestimating the components can substantially lead to a poor quality system. In order to improve coal mine safety, in this paper, a model scientifically allocating the reliability practice is introduced into the mine ventilation systems design process. Such a model can well consider the indeterminate problems in both the decision-making process and the system itself, to achieve the optimum reliability allocation. In detail, first, based on previous research findings, the hierarchical structure of a mine ventilation system is identified by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Second, the proposed reliability allocation model using the fuzzy mathematics calculation is applied to complete and optimize the reliability allocation works. Application of this model is also demonstrated at the end of this paper.