Nearsurface Air Layer Pollution with Micronic Dust Particles in Large-Scale Blasting in Open Pit Mining
V. M. Khazins, S. P. Solov’ev, D. N. Loktev, A. V. Krasheninnikov, V. V. Shuvalov
Academician Sadovsky Institute of Geosphere Dynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: Quarry, large-scale blasts, micro dust particles, numerical modeling
Abstract
Gas and dust clouding after large-scale blasting at Sitovo Quarry in the Lipetsk Region and the resultant pollution of the neighborhoods of the nearest towns is studied. The concentrations of solid particles less than 2.5 µm in size are determined in real time using modern equipment. The electronic filming of a large-scale blast and the dust cloud transfer with the wind within the limits of the quarry allowed considering a theoretical partial problem on propagation of fine-dispersion dust from the upper portion of the cloud from a height of 50-100 m to the recording points on ground surface beyond the quarry limits. The methods of computational fluid dynamics are used to model flow at the bottom of the atmospheric boundary layer disturbed by the wind interaction with the quarry topography. It is shown that turbulent diffusion ensures vertical dispersion of micro particles down to the recording points. An explanation is proposed for the revealed non-monotonic maximal concentration of dust over ground surface with an increasing distance from the quarry.
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