A CONSTRAINT-BASED PHYSICAL ANALYSIS OF VENTILATION INSTABILITY IN AUSTRALIAN UNDERGROUND MINING

This paper analyzes Australian underground mining ventilation as a physical stability problem rather than a compliance or air-delivery problem. By treating the mine as a confined, continuously driven energy system, the paper shows that stability is enforced only when boundary-mediated dissipation exceeds internal energy escalation at all times. Ventilation is identified as the primary high-rate dissipation mechanism, while surrounding rock mass is shown to act only as a temporary energy buffer that delays, but cannot prevent, runaway accumulation. The analysis demonstrates that compliance, monitoring, and buffering cannot guarantee stability under variable operational load, because they do not alter the underlying physical enforcement of energy accumulation.