In recent, the placement of backfill in underground mines has emerged as a new paradigm in research as it not only improves safety but also allows disposal of byproducts including coal ash. In this regards, this paper addresses the backfilling challenges in limestone mine to prevent sinkhole and subsidence. Limestone mines, generally regarded as being safer than coal and metal mines, have been ...

Achieving substantial reductions in the exposure of underground miners to diesel particulate matter in a number of metal and nonmetal mines in the U.S. depends on the ability of the industry to widely implement advanced diesel emissions control technologies, primarily diesel particulate filter (DPF) systems. Recent field studies showed that diesel particulate filter systems with Cordierite and ...

Underground mines are a special type of environment which requires significant attention since they directly relate to miners‟ productivity, health and safety. With coal or ore exploitation into deep underground mine environments, high temperature and humidity creates risks because of large amounts of heat generated from geothermal heat, mining machines, groundwater and mine water. There have b...

A Bluetooth beacon-based underground navigation system (BBUNS) was developed to identify the optimal haul road in an underground mine, track the locations of dump trucks, and display this information on mobile devices. A three-dimensional (3-D) geographic information system (GIS) database of the haul roads in an underground mine was constructed, and the travel time for each section was calculat...

The paper examines the design issues associated with the integration of mineral processing within underground mining systems. It demonstrates conceptual integrated system design options appropriate to a range of geological scenarios. Particular reference is then given to a case study of stoping in narrow base metal veins. The performance of such integrated systems in terms of productivity, econ...

Mine disasters claim thousands of human lives and cause millions of property loss every year. The safety of the mine worker is of paramount importance in any underground environment. Advances in the development of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for monitoring infrastructure health, and environmental conditions provide end users with the benefit of low-cost installation, maintenance and scalabi...

PROBLEM Mining in the United States remains one of the most hazardous industries, despite significant reductions in fatal injury rates over the last century. Coal mine fatality rates, for example, have dropped almost a thousand-fold since their peak in 1908. While incidence rates are very important indicators, lost worktime measures offer an alternative metric for evaluating job safety and heal...

This article presents a robotic dataset collected from the largest underground copper mine in the world. The sensor measurements from a 3D scanning lidar, a 2D radar, and stereo cameras were recorded from an approximately two kilometer traverse of a production-active tunnel. The equipment used and the data collection process is discussed in detail, along with the format of the data. This datase...

A low cost, battery-operated, portable, real-time aerosol analyzer is not available for monitoring diesel particulate matter (DPM) concentrations in underground mines. This study summarizes a field evaluation conducted at an underground limestone mine to evaluate the potential of the TSI AM 510 portable photometer (equipped with a Dorr-Oliver cyclone and 1.0-mum impactor) to qualitatively track...

The dominant working structure of an underground mine is a set of interconnected tunnels which provides access to ore zones and haulage of ore from the designated ore zones to the mill. This set of interconnected tunnels forms a network. We describe a mathematical network model and the modelling features of our two software tools for designing underground mine layouts that minimise associated c...