Development of a high performance, low maintenance, in-line water spray cooler for mines

This paper deals with a research program by the US Bureau of Mines. The program was field tested on the Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota. As mines go deeper and deeper, hot rock conditions require additional cooling besides the normal ventilation of fresh air. Because of the dust usually associated with these mines, normal coil cooling systems are rendered nearly useless unless they are constantly maintained. The system presented in this paper uses was sprayers to cool the air which requires low maintenance and helps to remove dust