New in Ventsim 5.4

[Martin Griffith]

Since the release of Ventsim 5.4 we've been busy adding new features to help with your underground ventilation modelling. On top of what came out in the original Ventsim 5.4 release (https://ventsim.com/2020/02/18/whats-new-in-ventsim-5-4/) the below is a list of what's new:

Heaters & Coolers

Instead of setting a heating or cooling source in your airway, you can define Heaters and Coolers with target temperatures. This works in a similar way to using a fixed temperature, but provides additional information on energy, water and fuel use, as well has having some really cool interactions with the Annual Thermal Flywheel Simulation. Just recently we've added the ability to set a maximum capacity to a cooler, making it behave more realistically.  

 

Parallel Fan Stall Predictor

Use this tool to scan over your model and assess the risk of stalled fans in parallel configurations. This helps to deal with the problem where in parallel fan configurations, one of more fans will be in stall, while the others are operating normally.

 

Traffic Features

We've added new ways to deal with the number of vehicles on an Activity Track varying throughout the day. You can now set a time to a stage, and have a different amount of traffic every hour of the day. We've also improved the UI around setting a track's starting location.

 

Advanced Message Boxes

We've seen lots of models adorned with many detailed and bespoke Advanced Message Boxes, showing simulation data in new and useful ways. If you want a particular piece of information from your model, there's probably a way you can do it with the Message Box. As users have provided feedback we've added new properties as well, so just ask if there is something you need. Also available are a number of new averaging techniques, which allow you to obtain more representative averages.

For example, this message box below gives an average temperature, but weighted for flow and length, rather than each airway having equal weight. 

This example here tells you how many fans in a particular section of the mine you have on: 

 

Diesel Simulation: Fresh Air Surplus

When you run a Diesel Simulation, Ventsim now calculates a new property Diesel | Air Surplus, which keeps a track of how much fresh air you have through the mine. This is often handled globally in the model, by summing the Diesel Power of all the machines in the mine and calculating a required air flow, generally following a regulation specifying a required airflow per kW of diesel power (often something around 0.06 (m3/s)/Kw). This property will calculate this locally. The fresh air consumed is calculated using the air flow requirement specified in the Diesel Settings, or adding a machine specific flow requirement in the Presets. If the Air Surplus drops below zero and you have a diesel machine in the area, you'll get a warning with your Diesel Simulation.

 

Fan Identifier

The Fan Identifier tool lets you keep track of individual fans, rather than just fan types. Set up your Fan Identifiers, and then assign them to airways. In the Fan Identifier, you can even keep fans that aren't being used. The tool will tell you the status of each fan, where it is, and will even let you control it from the Fan Identifier database. 

Auto-Regulators

Auto-regulators are a new resistance option for an airway. They use the same Regulator presets as the regular Regulator option, but instead of setting the opening, you set the Target flow rate, and Ventsim works out the opening; much like a control regulator would do it. If the target airflow can't be achieved you'll get a warning which tells you how much you've missed the target by. For people use to using Fixed Flows with the Restrict Only option on, autoregulators are a great option, since they won't simulate a flow as if the regulator is adding pressure; instead, the regulator will just be fully open. 

 

Electric Vehicles

In the Heat, Moisture, Diesel Presets, we've added an Electric Power column. This brings the Ventsim treatment of Electric Vehicles in line with how we treat Diesel Vehicles, namely by the (more readily available) motor output, rather than heat released. This also allows users to easily compare the use of Diesel and Electric vehicles in Ventsim. 

 

That's it for now, but you'll find many other smaller improvements in Ventsim 5.4 if you update to the latest version. As always, any questions, you can respond here or contact us at ventsim.support@howden.com. We rely a lot on your feedback to make the software better, so please tell us if there is something you would like to see in Ventsim.