MINE SAFETY
Autonomous and remote operations are changing the mining safety dynamic . Photo courtesy of Newtrax Technologies
Making the shift
Dan Gleeson explains why further automation and remote operations will not necessarily lead to reduced safety measures
The mining sector has come a long way in terms of safety in the past few decades and is now starting to compete with many other industries when it comes to injury and fatality statistics .
Increased mechanisation of mining , plus remote and automated operations have all played a role , but more monitoring of machines and personnel has had a bigger influence .
Even so , the goal of every worker returning home safe is still some way off .
In the US mining sector , 28 workers died last year , compared with 25 the year before , according to the Mine Health and Safety Agency .
It was even higher in South Africa , where 51 fatalities were recorded in 2017 by the Minerals Council of South Africa ( MCSA ), reversing a downward trend that started in 1993 and saw an 88 % improvement in the number of fatalities between that year and 2016 .
Still worse , 58 miners have been killed in the year to August 17 , with fall of ground tied to rock bursts behind a large number .
The MCSA , like the National Mining Association in the US , has been taking action .
At the launch of its National Day of Safety & Health in Mining 2018 campaign in August , the MCSA said all 66 of its member companies would hold similar events in the coming months to highlight the issue and discuss ways to turn the trend around .
South Africa , through the Mine Health and Safety Council ( MHSC ), has also invested more than ZAR150 million ($ 10.4 million ) researching gravity ‘ falls of ground ’ and over ZAR250 million investigating seismicity associated with deeplevel mines .
Some of this seed money appears to be bearing fruit , with South Africa ’ s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research ( CSIR ), a primary research provider to the MHSC , presenting a number of new technologies in July aimed at improving safety underground .
This included a robot known as ‘ Monster ’ to assess and identify risks in underground mines , ground penetrating radar ( GPR ) technologies to enable miners to visualise potentially hazardous geological structures in the hanging wall , a personnel detection system using range sensors to determine the distance between each identified person , and RockPulse technology to assist mines in measuring raw micro-seismicity .
Hexagon Mining , a specialist in designing and implementing safety equipment , is particularly active in South Africa and has come up with its own product to tackle these dangerous fall of ground incidents .
HYDRA-U , created by IDS GeoRadar ( a part of Hexagon ), is a compact , high accuracy , high resolution monitoring system designed for early warning and real-time management of ground fall hazards in underground mines , according to Hexagon .
It provides the high-accuracy (< 0.1 mm ) and high resolution typical of radar technology to support geotechnical engineers in guaranteeing a safe access to working places of the mine structure , protect the major service openings throughout their designed duty life , and assess the performance of ground supports .
These technologies and others from around the globe are likely to improve the conditions for personnel venturing below ground on a daily basis , but a move towards automation and remote operations means there will need to be another shift in the safety dynamic .
“ If you haven ’ t got a human being sitting there making decisions , you have to put controls in place to maintain safety . For example , if someone does enter an autonomous haul road , this breach is detected and appropriate action initiated , eg machines stop ,” Denis Kent , General Manager – EMEA for MST Global , told IM .
This is where collision avoidance systems ( CAS ), proximity detection systems ( PDS ), atmospheric and environmental monitoring systems and others are becoming increasingly important .
This , in turn , places a burden on the networks that facilitate effective communication between these separate entities , especially in an underground environment .
“ With autonomous and remote activities , it has made high quality connectivity and communications ever more important ,” Kent said .
“ The network is becoming mission-critical to underground mining ,” he added .
Developments on this side were discussed in detail in last month ’ s Mine Networks feature ( IM September , page 14 ), so , for this article , we will focus on the individual safety elements that feed into the networks .
Proximity detection
Machine collisions with personnel often result in fatalities – undoubtedly the biggest concern for mining companies – but they also cost the company in machine repairs , fines and lost production .
Hexagon has come up with a case study using actual incidents reported to industry or governmental agencies in various countries to show how this cost breaks down .
Case one : A haul truck backs into another haul truck in a parking area ( dump body strikes cab ) in a surface gold mine . No one is injured and one truck is down for repair for five days ( 10 shifts ). The mine averages one incident per year : n Cost of repair - $ 200,000 ; n Lost production - $ 660,000 ; n Total per incident - $ 860,000 ; n Total over five years - $ 4.3 million .
Case two : A haul truck clips a pedestrian , resulting in a fatality at a surface coal mine and an investigation that stops mining operations for two days . This happens once during a fiveyear period : n Fines - $ 240,000 ; n Lost production - $ 9.12 million ; n Cost of fatality - $ 9.36 million ; n Total per incident - $ 18.72 million .
As can be seen , the cost of such incidents is sizeable and , if they occur on a regular basis , the production loss is too significant .
This is why there has been a proliferation of PDS and CAS solutions coming onto the market in the past few years .
The detection tags worn by personnel have become a lot more sophisticated than the initial RFID varieties that appeared more than a
International Mining | OCTOBER 2018