###### Abstract  
Dust control is one of the most difficult challenges for underground coal mine operators, especially longwall mine operators. The most widely used dust control technologies at a longwall section are ventilation air and water sprays, whereas a continuous miner section has the added advantage of having a dust scrubber built into the continuous miner. To test the potential benefits of integrating a flooded-bed scrubber into a longwall shearer, the authors designed and built a dust scrubber system for a full-scale mock-up of a longwall shearer. The mock-up was installed in the longwall test gallery at the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL) for testing. Air quantity surveys were performed at different cross-sections of the test gallery at a fixed face-air quantity, but at different scrubber airflow rates to quantify the distribution of air in the test gallery. Subsequently, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the PRL test gallery was developed and validated. In this study, the effect of the flooded-bed scrubber on airflow pattern in the test gallery is investigated using the validated CFD model. This model can be used further to predict the dust capture efficiency of the scrubber and to develop new techniques to reduce dust concentration in longwall sections. at longwall operations across the U.S., conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to identify operating practices and the types of dust control methods being used, show a wide variety of approaches across the industry [2; 33]. The differences are primarily due to different operating conditions and equipment. Although the dust control technologies differ from mine to mine, dilution through ventilation air and suppression by water sprays are still the most common methods used in U.S. longwall mines [1; 34; 35]. With the advent of the new dust regulations (the Final Rule) that require mine operators to maintain a dust limit of 1.5 mg/m\({}^{3}\) at the working face and 0.5 mg/m\({}^{3}\) in the intake, dust control at a longwall face has become very challenging [36]. Hence, the development of new dust control technologies would be very beneficial to longwall operations. In an effort to reduce dust concentration at a longwall face, the authors conceptualized a dust scrubber integrated into a longwall shearer, similar to what has been done successfully on continuous miners. According to NIOSH, a flooded-bed scrubber integrated within a continuous miner can achieve a maximum of 91% capture and 90% cleaning efficiencies [37; 38; 39]. As a result, a full-scale physical model of a Joy 7 LS longwall shearer, modified by integrating a flooded-bed dust scrubber, was fabricated at the University of Kentucky. The modified physical model was set up in the longwall test gallery at the NIOSH Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL) to test its effectiveness at capturing respirable dust. The overarching aim was to reduce dust concentrations along the longwall face area. As a preliminary step towards the overarching aim, air quantity surveys were performed to quantify the distribution of airflow in the longwall test gallery. The surveys were performed at four different cross-sections along the face of the test gallery at a fixed face-air quantity and three different scrubber air capacities. Subsequently, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the longwall gallery and modified shearer (the entire laboratory setup) was developed, and CFD simulations were carried out for the airflow in the test gallery for the abovementioned three cases. This paper presents a comparison of the survey results with CFD results in two stages. In the first stage, a general comparison of the total quantity of air passing through each cross-section (calculated from the area-weighted average velocity at each cross-section) is presented. In the second stage, a more precise comparison of the magnitude of velocity at six measuring points at each cross-section is presented.