FLOW DISTRIBUTION CHANGES IN COMPLEX CIRCUITS - IMPLICATIONS FOR MINEEXPLOSIONS

On at least two separate occasions, methane gas explosions occurred in underground mines when separate ventilation systems were connected. A review of these disasters indicated that conceptual errors made by th e miners may have contributed to these fatal mistakes. The conceptual errors thought to be at fault concerned inadequate mental models of fl ow distribution changes within the mine ventilation circuit. Research conducted in this study indicates that connecting previously unconnect ed and unobstructed parallel circuits or adding one or more resistors results in inadequate mental models of flow distribution changes in ov er 70% of the 136 mine workers sampled.