Modelling hydraulic mixture movement along the extraction chamber bottom in case of hydraulic washout of the tuff-stone

This paper presents the research results of the pulp movement process along the extraction chamber bottom to the suction pipe of the pulp lifting device in case of downhole hydraulic mining the volcanic tuff-stone. The washout process and hydraulically operated transportation of the tuff-stone hydraulic mixture, when forming the extraction chamber, have been studied under various conditions and methods of exposure. As a result, the dominant parameters have been determined influencing the hydrodynamic washout technology as well as tuff-stone hydraulic mixture lifting to the alluviation map. The dependences have been substantiated of the washout process performance and transportation capacity of the hydraulic mixture flow on the determined parameters. To calculate the process of pulp flow-over along the extraction chamber bottom to the intaking hydraulic elevator headwall, the systems of equations have been determined based on the modelling the movement of tuff-stone hydraulic mixture along the extraction chamber bottom during hydraulic washout. The dependences of the contact strength of the tuff-stone samples mined by downhole method on the time spent in water are presented, resulting in determination of the tuff-stone weakening coefficient and the degree of its saturation with water.

Experiments on Air Compression with an Isothermal Piston for Energy Storage

Air is usually compressed adiabatically in the compressor. As the operating speed of compressors can be several thousand rpm, heat generated during compression cannot be sufficiently transmitted to the environment in such a short time. It is for this reason that compressor efficiency is limited. Isothermal compression could be an alternative choice applied on industrial compressor and compressed air energy storage (CAES). This paper proposed a new kind of piston to perform isothermal compression. Surface area of such isothermal piston structure is larger. A certain amount of fluid at the chamber bottom absorbs the heat from the isothermal piston. Heat transfer between piston and fluid during compression is investigated. Air pressure is measured to validate the effectiveness of this proposed piston structure in heat transfer. Compression work of the proposed isothermal piston and conventional one is compared. One issue of this comparison is that air-liquid dissolution can affect the pressure and compression work. The influence of dissolution is quantified with Henry’s Law. Quantitative analysis is performed to determine that heat transfer is the dominant factor affecting the pressure and compression work. Some simple experiments are described in this paper, which shed light on that heat transfer could be significantly improved adopting this proposed isothermal piston.

Experimental study of the performance of a siphon sediment cleansing set in a CSO chamber

Model experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of a siphon sediment cleansing set (SSCS) for preventing sediment deposition on the combined sewer overflow (CSO) chamber bottom. The results confirmed the effectiveness of siphon suction in sediment removal in the chamber. The sediment scour test revealed that the equilibrium scour depth correlated significantly with the siphon-lift capacity of the SSCS, which was a function of the initial siphon head and the cross-sectional area ratio between the CSO chamber and the siphon.