Shaft winders, ventilation-on-demand and refuge bays before first blast
Commissioning software for underground mines where the hoist, the ventilation system and the refuge infrastructure have to be proven before anyone works at depth.
An underground mine commissions life-critical systems that a surface operation never touches: shaft winders and their overspeed protection, ventilation-on-demand fans and regulators, refuge bays, mine-wide gas monitoring and underground communications. Deskely holds every shaft, level and system in one register with the statutory sign-off gates that have to close before crews go underground.
- Life-critical systems
- Winders, ventilation, refuge bays
- Process
- Dry run, load test, statutory test
- Gate
- Fit to send crews underground
- Authority
- Mine inspectorate and shaft examiner
Choose your project type
The problem
A shaft that looks finished on paper is not a shaft anyone is legally allowed to send a person down.
Shaft winders, ventilation fans, refuge bays and gas monitoring nodes are commissioned by different specialist contractors on different schedules, often over months as levels are developed one at a time, and none of it converts automatically into permission to send a crew underground.
When overspeed test certificates, ventilation survey results and refuge bay verification sit in separate contractor files, the mine manager cannot answer a basic question at the start of a shift: is this level actually fit to work in today.
Deskely puts every shaft, fan, regulator and refuge bay in one register with one status model, so the readiness of a level or a shaft is derived from signed statutory records instead of assembled from memory before the shift starts.
Setting up the register
Winders, fans, regulators and refuge bays are tagged assets with their own statutory test set.
Shaft general arrangement drawings, hoist rope and drum schedules, and ventilation network models are parsed into a reviewed register, so every conveyance, brake, fan and regulator carries its design data and its inspection history from day one.
Overspeed and overwind protection tests, brake holding tests and rope non-destructive examination are templated once per shaft and instantiated for every winder on site, while ventilation-on-demand commissioning is tracked fan by fan and regulator by regulator across the network.
That structure is what lets one level be declared fit for crews while development continues on a level below, without losing track of which ventilation regulator serves which working face.
Load testing and statutory proving
The shaft examiner signs off on measured evidence, not on a description of what the hoist did last week.
Winder overspeed trips, emergency brake holding capacity and conveyance guide clearances are recorded against the shaft asset with the measured values the shaft examiner needs, not a narrative summary written up afterward.
Ventilation-on-demand testing proves that fan speed, regulator position and airflow at the working face respond correctly to real-time gas readings, with each test run linked to the level and heading it protects.
Refuge bay commissioning — air supply duration, communications, and self-rescuer inventory — is recorded per bay, and gas monitoring node calibration is tracked against its own recalibration cycle so an overdue sensor is visible before it becomes a hazard nobody caught.
Handover to mine operations
Operations inherits a shaft and a ventilation network that has to stay provably safe for the life of the mine, not just on opening day.
Winder maintenance schedules, rope examination history, ventilation survey baselines and refuge bay inspection cycles all need to sit against the same asset that the underground manager's shift reports will reference every day of operation.
Because the statutory record set builds continuously against the register, a handover-to-operations dossier for a new shaft or a newly developed level is an export rather than a reconstruction from contractor files after the fact.
Every signature carries a name, role and timestamp, which is what the shaft examiner, the mine inspectorate and any subsequent incident investigation will ask for first.
Ground support and seismic re-entry protocol
A stope that has been bolted and meshed is not the same as a stope that has been cleared to re-enter after a seismic event.
Rock bolt installation, shotcrete application and mesh coverage are commissioned against a ground support design that varies stope by stope and level by level, and in seismically active ground a microseismic monitoring array has to be live and calibrated before development advances past a defined depth.
After a seismic event or a production blast, re-entry is governed by a strict protocol — gas clearance, visual ground inspection and, on high-risk levels, a geotechnical sign-off referencing the seismic array's own event log — and that protocol is worthless if the array's sensor calibration or the ground support installation record for the affected heading cannot be produced on the spot.
Deskely holds rock bolt pull-testing records, shotcrete thickness verification and seismic sensor calibration against the specific heading and level they cover, so a re-entry decision is made against a signed ground support and monitoring record rather than a shift boss's memory of when that stope was last inspected.
What the fit-to-send-crews-underground gate reads
The life-critical records a shaft examiner signs against before people go underground.
Underground commissioning is dominated by systems where a paperwork shortcut kills someone, not just a schedule. The dossier keeps winder, ventilation and refuge evidence attached to the shaft or level it belongs to, so the statutory sign-off references a tested system rather than an installation checklist.
Winder overspeed and brake test record
The conveyance stops within the certified distance at rated and overspeed conditions
Statutory load test, before crews are carried
Ventilation-on-demand test record
Airflow to each working area meets the design rate under the control logic actually deployed
Commissioning of the ventilation-on-demand system, re-verified at each new development face
Refuge bay life-support functional test
Air supply, communications and duration meet the statutory rating for the occupant count
Before the bay is declared available for use
Gas monitoring system calibration certificate
Fixed and handheld sensors read within tolerance across the alarm range
Commissioning, then on the site's recalibration cycle
Shaft examiner's statutory inspection report
Guides, conveyances and shaft steelwork meet the jurisdiction's periodic inspection requirement
Before first cage ride, then on the statutory interval
Emergency egress and self-rescuer drill record
Crews can reach a refuge bay or surface within the time the ventilation and gas plan assumes
Before the level is opened to routine production
How it runs
From shaft sinking to the first crew going underground.
Underground programmes reward a register built before the winder is installed, because the gate to send people underground is where every unclosed statutory test becomes a production-stopping delay.
- 01
Model shafts and ventilation
Winders, fans, regulators, refuge bays and gas monitoring nodes modelled as assets, each carrying its statutory test requirement.
- 02
Parse shaft and ventilation data
Shaft GAs, hoist schedules and ventilation network models drafted into a reviewed register with design intent attached.
- 03
Template statutory tests
Overspeed, brake holding, rope NDE and ventilation-on-demand tests defined once per shaft, instantiated across every winder and fan.
- 04
Gate crew access on signed sign-off
Level and shaft fitness reported from signed statutory records, with the shaft examiner's and inspectorate's sign-off tracked to closure.
FAQ
Questions about Underground mines scopes.
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