The event is scheduled for June 9 to 11 at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada, near the host school of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Monday's topics include ventilation planning, heat and humidity and spontaneous combustion; Tuesday will feature the Miner’s Act and sealing, numerical modelling, coal mine methane, mine dust, tunnel ventilation and mine fans; and Wednesday's schedule will highlight diesel emissions control, mine fires, ventilation design and monitoring.

Monday's planned sessions will take guests from a welcome and keynote at 8am local time through presentations such as:

Optimum width of longwall panels in highly gassy mines – P Thakur;

The borehole monitoring experiment: field measurements of reservoir conditions and responses in longwall panel overburden during active mining – S J Schatzel, et al;

A preliminary study of the unsteady states of the ventilation parameters at the longwall face during the shearer operation – S Wasilewski and M Branny; and

Innovative features of the Bridger Coal Company/supply air fans and system – G S Takenaka and G A Gamble.

The afternoon will also feature spontaneous combustion and heat/humidity talks, including the effects of ventilation and gob characteristics on spontaneous heating in longwall gob areas, a study of the gases produced by the oxidation of bulk coal under laboratory conditions, and the positive pressure chamber.

Tuesday will also kick off at 8am with a single session on the Miner's Act and mine seals. Other planned presentations include:

Sealing design – D R Chalmers;

A simplified approach to coal mine seal design – M M Gadde, et all;

Turbulent diffusion coefficient in mine airways – N P Widodo, et al;

Numerical simulation of ventilation airflow in underground mine workings – S M Aminossadati and K Hooman; and

Thermal oxidation of coal mine ventilation air methane – J M Somers and H L Schultz.

Tuesday's late morning and afternoon sessions will also be full, with talks on the advances in grid-based numerical modelling techniques in improving gas management in coal mines; the verification and calibration of ventilation network models; a study on the effects of scrubber operation on face ventilation; the effectiveness of a water curtain utilised for dust control on continuous miner sections; and an analysis of particulate contamination in personal dust monitoring sampling.

The third and final day of the symposium will begin at the regular time but will adjourn slightly earlier. Some morning presentations include:

The effects of biodiesel fuel and intake air methane on the emissions of a flameproof diesel power package – M Gangal, et al;

Directing responses to mine fires and explosions – J E Urosek and K S Diederich;

Challenges in undertaking inertisation of fires in underground mines – A D S Gillies and H W Wu;

Conveyor belt entry fire hazards and control – H Verakis and M Hockenberry; and

Mobile gas laboratory for responding to mine fires and explosions – M P Valoski.

The afternoon's plans will take on general ventilation and mine fires, touching on atmospheric monitoring systems for very large mines, the use of the KISS principle in ventilation modelling, the evaluation of deep-seated crib block fire tests and an update on experimental research being done on the behaviour of ventilation air around shafts during a fire.

Poster papers, workshops and post-conference field trips will also be conducted throughout the week. A banquet has been scheduled for Tuesday evening with an open invitation to all guests.

Organisers noted that the symposium, its optional workshops and technical field trips provide contact hours that could qualify for PDH for PE and other professional certifications; those with questions should contact the coordinators.

For more information on the event, a website has been established as a portal to all related information: http://www.unr.edu/ventsymp2008