Optimizing Coal Dust Suppression Factors in a Laboratory Using a Three-Level Factorial Approach

초록

Many factors (type of coal mined, water pump pressure, wetting agent concentration, etc) will affect the performance of a dust suppression system using a water spray in an underground coal mine. While a two-level factorial method is useful in the early stages of a lab test and can provide useful information with the smallest number of tests, its usefulness is limited because it can only describe a linear relationship. A three-level factorial analysis is necessary to accurately analyse a non-linear test result. It is the intent of this paper to demonstrate how to calculate the parameters of this non-linear curve and to use the results to describe the performance of various parameters in a venturi-scrubber dust suppression system used underground.