Published in the December 2006 American Longwall Magazine

Is the future of mine ventilation in trouble? Is education in this highly technical area of mining engineering lacking? The issue took on new life following the publication of a technical research paper by Keith Wallace and Craig Hairfield of California-based Mine Ventilation Services.

The two took the stage at the US/North American Mine Ventilation Symposium at Pennsylvania State University in June 2006 with their study findings and recommendations.

The duo said that a lack of ventilation focus in existing mining engineering curriculums and a shortage of qualified experts in the specialty were leading to a significant problem for the future of mine ventilation engineers.

There are currently 14 accredited US undergraduate programs in mining engineering or mining-related disciplines. While all offer at least one ventilation course as part of its requirements, and all but three offer lab time for it, there are only six that are taught by dedicated ventilation professors (those holding a PhD in the field, or who have authored work published in the discipline and/or who have practical experience), Wallace and Hairfield said.

In fact, some of these specialized courses are taught by graduate students or professors without the needed experience, Wallace said. Many of the more detailed areas of mine ventilation, including issues dealing with modeling, Mine Safety and Health Administration regulations and survey techniques are not taught in the way they need to be, he said.

To compound the problem, at least half of those “expert” professors remaining are nearing retirement age – an aging workforce problem of its own in the industry, according to the authors. “This is a concern, as it does not bode well for the future of mine ventilation education in the United States. The entire subject of mine ventilation is in jeopardy of losing the talent necessary to train engineers in the field.”

The education of these new ventilation engineers, they added, is left to the mining operation with which they gain employment, placing a burden on the mine’s training staff to do a job which they feel should be completed in academia. Wallace and Hairfield, while both maintaining the utmost respect for the educational sector and the existing mining engineering programs, said the current and future safety of miners was the most important outcome. “You never want to forego safety – period.”

Those in the academic field have varying opinions on the situation. Dr Jan Mutmansky and Dr Raj Ramani of Penn State University, two published experts in mine ventilation, said that there’s a shortage of all types of specialists in the mining sector, even mining engineers themselves; an estimated 70 graduates from US programs had their pick of more than 100 opportunities last year.

The experts the US does have are an unusual occurrence, said Ramani: “Very, very unusual. It is a luxury to have ventilation experts.”

Where the area of mine ventilation is lacking, according to the PSU educators, is in the research arena. In order for new issues to be examined and new research to commence, the currently non-existent funding must be in place.

Hairfield and Wallace concurred with this conclusion, noting that without research funding available for universities to hire specialized talent in any field of mine engineering, there will never again be experts in any specialized area, be it rock mechanics or ventilation.

“The key to developing universities with the skills necessary to train the next generation of quality mining engineering students is the faculty. The Catch-22 is that universities cannot hire faculty unless they can do research.

“At present, there is precious little funding for mining [and] without some type of funding for research in the field, we will never develop a strong mining engineering program,” they said, adding that other countries including Canada, South Africa and Australia have governmental and private sector funding for their programs. “The US is way behind in this area,” the authors said.

A solution both Ramani and Mutmansky offer is the appointment of “corporate ventilation engineers” by coal operators who serve as the single-point expert for all of the producer’s holdings. With ventilation issues becoming more complex – higher productivity, deeper seams, more dust and more gas being just a few of these issues – having an expert on staff at the corporate level can ensure efficiency for all mines that a company controls as well as consistent and proactive ventilation safety efforts.

Not properly handling these more complex features of mining, the professors said, could be disastrous. The larger and more complicated mine ventilation circuits must be designed and continuously maintained by an expert in the field.

Mutmansky noted that there are mining engineering programs that “downplay mining ventilation courses… [and] I consider that to be a problem”. Ramani concurred, saying the reduction or elimination of these courses for the purposes of minimizing program credit requirements or staff shortages is a disservice. “The two most important [mining engineering] program courses are ground control and mine ventilation.”

However, Mutmansky said...click here to read on.