Hi Mohammad.

The differences between Mine Ventilation and tunnel ventilation are many, but I explain to you the most important.

1. The principal object of tunnel ventilation is extract combustión gases generated by cars. Other object is clean the tunnel when accidents cuase fires, for this reason the fans used of tunnel ventilation has the capacity of work at 250C or 400C of temperatura. 

Desing of tunnel ventilation is difiicult and need experience and many variables, example length tunnel, section, date of fire magnitude, Type of traffic, etc.

2. The mine ventilation is designed to guarantee clear air from workers. Systems mine ventilation Works with more air presure because it´s the most commun losses. The fans from mine ventilation only need quimic protection (Air acid ) .

Check those links, and excuse me by my terrible english translation.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0886779803000233

https://books.google.com.co/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xPpnf0dMwtoC&oi=fnd&pg=PT12&dq=mine+ventilation+system+design&ots=HWxQUqMG83&sig=01aPuAM8OV3btG89ZzFsB-538GU#v=onepage&q=mine%20ventilation%20system%20design&f=false

Tunnel ventilation is altogether different from mine ventilation. since it has to deal with high speed traffic, accident hazards, and high velocity and turbulent air current etc. Mine ventilation aims at providing fresh air at the face and remove toxic gases in a closed loop. Tunnel is an open loop (duct) whereas mine system may be simulated as a closed loop (duct).

By writing the concerns of tunnel ventilation, by any chance, I did not mean that it is complex or more difficult than underground mine ventilation.

Galleries can be ventilate by taking advantage of pressure difference. But it is very hard used in tunnel (height difference). 

Actually I am not sure I agree with Roland.  Only simple road tunnels or rail tunnels can be viewed as a duct. 

In simulating metros and underground rapid transit systems, we often model complete air networks of tunnels, vent shafts, as well as the air path to street level ambient through stations via stairs and escalators.  We need to model wherever air goes, and work out flow rates, temperatures, humidity etc.  Often we use hundreds of sections and nodes, and the industry standard software SES (Subway Environment Simulation) in fact sets up a matrix of nodes and sections and solves airflows around the network driven either by piston effect of trains or fans.  The matrix is inverted iteratively and the converged solutions are then printed out. 

The program is of modular design consisting of Train Performance, Aerodynamics, Temperature/Humidity and Heat Sink/Environmental Control.

In designing metro ventilation systems, we simulate a variety of normal, congested an d fire emergency scenarios with numerous system options, in a large network of connected air paths made up of tunnels, stations and vent shafts. These include train propulsion and braking systems, various environmental control systems (including mechanical ventilation, station air conditioning, and trackway or under platform exhaust), airflow in any underground network of interconnected tunnels, stations and underground walkways, any desired sequence of train operation; various steady state and non-steady state heat sources; emergency situations with trains stopped in the tunnels and air movement by mechanical ventilation with or without buoyant forces.

 In designing road tunnel ventilation, we simulate both pollution concentrations from vehicle exhausts, as well as smoke development during fire incidents.

Hi Mohammad,

The main differences between tunnel and mine ventilation are as follows:

1. Atmospheric contaminants. In traffic tunnels, the main contaminants are vehicle exhaust gases (from petrol and diesel vehicles) and particulates from diesel vehicles (DPM), whilst in underground mine, the main contaminants depend on the commodity that is mined. In non-uranium hard rock mines (non-uranium metals, diamond and other hard materials), the main contaminants are diesel exhaust gases (petrol vehicles are not allowed to be used in underground mines), DPM, and dust.  In coal mines, coal seam gases such as Methane and Carbon Dioxide are the main contaminants, and also coal dust. In uranium mines, radon gas and radon bearing dust are the main contaminants, and also DPM. Dust is generally not considered as a main atmospheric contaminant in traffic tunnel due to its low presence.

2. Due to the difference in contaminants, the method to calculate required airflow is different between tunnel and mines, and between coal mines, uranium mines, and non-uranium hard rock mines.

3.  Depth. Mines are generally deeper than tunnels. The deepest mine in the world is Mponeng gold mine in South Africa, which is about 4 km below surface. Some mines in Australia, Canada and USA are located at 2 to 3 km below surface. This has a significant impact on the air conditioning as at these depths the air temperatures become too high to safely work in due to high rock temperatures and autocompression (> 40 deg C). In this case a cooling system (mechanical refrigeration plant) has to be installed. This condition is seldom encountered in tunnels due to their shallow depth, although few like the Tube in London has this condition during summer.

4. This deeper location also cause a mine ventilation circuit is generally more complex than a tunnel ventilation circuit. An underground mine has multiple levels, can be up to 100. As a result, the airflow quantity in mines is usually much higher than that in tunnels. For example, Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold mine in Australia has about 4000 m3/s of air flowing through it. In contrast, airflow in tunnels generally do not exceed 500 m3/s. This then results in larger fans used in mines than in tunnels.

5. Fire emergency management is simpler in mines than that in tunnels as personnel in mines are mineworkers who are trained to face fire events and equipped with breathing apparatuses such as SCSR (self contained self rescuer), CABA (compressed air breathing apparatus), and refuge chambers. In contrast, personnel in tunnels are civilians who are not trained to face fire events and not equipped with breathing appratuses.

6. Due to reason stated in no.5, fire simulation in mines is simpler than that in tunnels. CFD is widely used in tunnels but not in mines as a very detail prediction of distribution of combustion products is required in tunnels whilst it is not the case in mines. Fire simulations in mines are done with one-dimensional approach (discrete sub-cell transport and node mixing method) using softwares such as Ventsim Visual VentFIRE.

Many thanks Adrian.  Excellent points and very useful discussion by all participants.

Basically there is no difference and the mathematical equations to solve are the same, with simple and difficult cases in both situations:

network of ventilation shafts, tunnels, etc; compressible fluid, with heat and particles transport

Agree Flamion. Atkinson's law, gas laws, psychrometric equations and thermodynamic principles are both used in mines and tunnels.The principles that are only used in coal mines but not in tunnels and non-coal mines are Langmuir adsorption, Darcy law, and coal oxidation principles.