Described by supplier Whyte-Hall as the lightest and most powerful ventilation fan in its class, the 618mm-diameter air﷓driven Typhoon has proven effective in all three mines despite considerable differences in the way they have been deployed. The three mines are Moonee colliery near Lake Macquarie, south of Newcastle, New South Wales, Oaky No.1 in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, and West Cliff near Wollongong, south of Sydney, NSW.

 

Oaky No.1 development co-ordinator, Greg Merrick, said the Typhoon fan was hung from the roof from a chain, connected to a 10m length of Layflat ducting and used to ventilate stub-ends during moves to new roadway sections in longwall gateroad development. “It uses less compressed air than others yet gives us plenty of air at the face,” he said. “In the three months we’ve had it, I’ve received no bad reports about it and it’s reasonably quiet.”

 

At West Cliff, the Typhoon is credited with contributing to a productivity boost. “When the panel is shut down over the weekend, we set up the Typhoon in the ventilation line,” said Bill Vatovec, the mine’s planning manager and ventilation officer. “This allows us to positively ventilate the face throughout the weekend so that we don’t lose time on the start﷓up on Monday morning. “Providing a safe environment during shut﷓down periods is a key feature of the Typhoon system.”

 

At Moonee, the Typhoon is decked out in “armourplate” and secured to withstand an unwanted phenomenon: windblasts. Col Macdonald, project co-ordinator for the mine, said voids behind longwall roof supports could become areas as big as football fields. “When we’re shearing the 90m longwall, the 35m-per-second air supply is reduced to zero by the time you get to the tailgate end because of the void,” he said. “The Typhoon helps maintain the necessary air at the tailgate end and takes dust away from the shearer.

 

“But it needs protection against wind blasts of up to 360kmph which occur when the hydro-fracturing process we have developed here brings down from the conglomerate beam chunks as big as 100m-by-100m, by 14m thick, in one go.

 

“We’ve fitted a reinforced guard around the fan with a mesh at the intake and outlet and it is not connected to any ducting. We chain it strongly to the canopy at 52 roof supports otherwise it would become a projectile in a wind blast.

 

“I’ve had a lot of experience with this type of fan. They can be very heavy, but this one is light and it meets air flow requirements.”

According to Whyte-Hall, the Typhoon at only 30kg weighs one-third less than other fans promising similar performance. Designed “from the ground up” to meet all statutory requirements, the Typhoon features a high-output TurboVane motor, a Mines Department-approved zinc alloy hub, and a nine﷓bladed fan made of antistatic, UV-stabilised fibreglass which conforms with AS2380. The cowling is fine-filament-spiral-wound FRAS (fire rated antistatic), designed to accommodate direct coupling to Mineglass, Layflat and most other ducting.

 

* This article originally appeared in the September 2000 edition of Australia's Longwalls.