Special Issue "Taking Health and Safety in the Mining Industry into the 21st Century - Innovative solutions to difficult problems"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. David Cliff
Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC), The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia
Website: http://www.uq.edu.au/uqexperts/profile.php?staff_id=1964
E-Mail: d.cliff@mishc.uq.edu.au
Phone: +61 7 3346 4086
Fax: +61 7 3346 4067
Interests: spontaneous combustion; fires; explosions; gas analysis; emergency preparedness; incident management; hours of work and OHS; occupational hygiene; fatigue; fitness for duty; coal mine fires; respirable dust; noise; occupational health and safety in mining

Dear Colleagues,

As mining moves into the 21st century, developments in mining methods and the scale of mining present new challenges in the management of health and safety. The issues include the increased size of mining equipment, the higher degree of automation, and the increased use of remote control equipment. In addition to these physical issues there is increased stress being placed upon workers due to the shortage of suitably skilled staff, the ever increasing demands to improve productivity with less personnel and the increased expectations of the public for continued improvement in health and safety performance. The increasing development of mine sites necessitating long distance commuting, living in camps and flying or driving in and out at the end of each shift cycle also creates psychosocial pressures. Finally intermittent disasters sadly continue to occur despite many improvements in mining technology.

Prof. Dr. David Cliff
Guest Editor

Submission

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

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• automation and safety
• occupational Health
• psychosocial health
• fatigue and hours of work
• commute mining/FIFO
• physical fitness
• drug and alcohol usage
• disaster management and prevention
• behaviour based safety
• resilience and reliability
• safety Management Systems

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Pursuing Solutions to Recent Increases in Major Hazard Related Fatalities and Dust Disease Prevalence in the U.S.
Authors: Robert Larry Grayson and Nicholas R. D’Imperio
Affiliation: Department of Energy & Mineral Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 103A Hosler Building, State College, PA 16802, USA; E-Mail: rlg19@psu.edu (R.L.G.); nrd5064@psu.edu (N.R.D.)
Abstract: Over the past decade, difficult problems arose related to major hazard-related fatalities and dust diseases of the lungs. During 1991–2000, eight fatalities resulted from an explosion, but the fatalities rose to 70 over six major hazard-related events during 2001–2010. Also the prevalence of dust diseases of the lungs among underground coal miners working in ‘hot spot’ regions increased 2 to 4 times over the predicted prevalence.  A number of initiatives are now seeking to solve the problems, others are pending, and options for improving the approaches are being formulated, all of which will be presented in this paper.

Title: Simulation-based Development of an Efficient Ventilation System to Control Dust Dispersion in Underground Coal Mine Faces
Authors: Jundika Candra Kurnia and Arun Sadashiv Mujumdar
Affiliation: Minerals Metals Materials Technology Centre, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore; E-Mails: G0700828@nus.edu.sg (J.C.K.); mpeasm@nus.edu.sg (A.S.M.)
Abstract: Presence of fine dust in air causes serious health hazard for mine operators resulting in such serious problems as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis and silicosis. Major sources of dust appear along the mining face where the minerals are extracted. Proper control and management are required to ensure safe working environment in the mine. Here, we utilize the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approach to investigate the detailed local flow and dust behaviour in mining tunnels. The objective of this study is to propose and examine various strategies to mitigate dust dispersion from the mining face and reduce dust concentration to a safe level for the operator. In a companion study, we investigated various methods for mitigating dust dispersion from the mining face for ensuring a safe level of dust concentration in the mine tunnel. The methods used include: application of controlled blowing and strategically placed exhaust fans, application of brattice and hybrid designs which are combinations of both. The results suggest that without additional ventilation, dust particles tend to accumulate in the mining face and hence can endanger mine operator’s health. Among the examined methods, implementation of brattice to direct the flow from the main shaft to the mining face is the most effective method to disperse dust particle away from the mining face. Results of the modelling over a range of parameters of interest are presented and discussed with the goal of managing dust concentrations within safe limits for the operator with reduced use of ventilation air and lower electrical power consumption for the ventilation systems.
Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; dust mitigation; mine ventilation; underground mining; ventilation modeling