Recent U.S. mine disasters identified a need for improved training of miners in escape from mine fires and explosions. Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Spokane Research Labora­ tory (SRL) have designed fire-escape training software for use in a mine-safety training course. The software allows four trainees to work together in a virtual world via...

This paper is a study of the ventilation, cooling and refrigeration system design of the Mindola copper mine in Zambia. The challenges that were addressed varied from the restrictions imposed by an ageing infrastructure to the requirement for increasing the annual production rate, coupled to the introduction of a higher level of mechanization while maintaining acceptable conditions and limiting...

The generation of heat in underground spaces due to working activities is a factor that influences production and productivity rates. This paper analyses the heat generation in an underground mine and provides a number of approaches to enhance the ventilation conditions using electrical, instead of diesel machines. This assessment has been carried out using theoretical equations and modelling s...

Determining the distribution of heavy metals in groundwater is important in developing appropriate management strategies at mine sites. In this paper, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) methods to data analysis,namely artificial neural network (ANN), hybrid ANN with biogeography-based optimization (ANN-BBO), and multi-output adaptive neural fuzzy inference system (MANFIS) to estima...

The problem of factors influencing the sensors in a mine gas monitoring system cannot be solved by a single sensor itself. The multi-sensor information fusion technique was put forward to increase the system’s information utilance, precision, dependability and error tolerance. Based on the information source that the mine gas monitoring system has collected, the system’s structure mode was defi...