Zitrón is an innovator when it comes to making carbon fiber blades for the ventilation of large mines. Now the company plans to adapt these blades for use on long highway or train tunnels in order to prevent possible underground fires.

Zitrón has now begun to employ carbon fiber in the manufacture of fan blades for its ventilation systems that are used in large mines. This has allowed the firm to build large-diameter ventilators of up to 5.2 meters and thereby break the 4 meter barrier. Carbon fiber permits this increase in size, while it also improves efficiency and lengthens the useful life of the ventilators. In fact this could lead to even bigger sizes, starting from a base of 3.5 meters in diameter with over 1.5 megawatts of power.

Ventilators that are made from conventional materials such as aluminum or cast steel can experience problems when it comes to meeting the needs of today’s large mines which require equipment with diameters of over 3.5 meters.

A 6.5 kilo carbon fiber fan blade would weigh 30 kilos if it were made of aluminum, and close to 90 kilos if manufactured from cast steel. By reducing the weight of these blades Zitrón’s ventilators can turn faster and improve both air pressure and flow. This also lengthens the useful life of the electric motor.

Having already successfully installed carbon fiber blades at large Russian mines—the company’s major clients—the firm now hopes to export its large ventilators for use in highway, train and subway tunnels.

In these situations the ventilators don’t need such large diameters. Instead, they must extract underground air and be fire resistant, being capable of withstanding temperatures of 400 degrees Celsius for two hours while operating at 1,000 revolutions per minute.