NIOSH Mining Laboratory

Mining machine in the Full Scale Continuous Miner Dust Gallery

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Evaluating technologies to control respirable dust and face gas levels at continuous miner operations can be difficult in an underground mine environment. Such technology assessments can be easily confounded by operational variations in ventilation, dust control parameters, machine cutting conditions, and production levels. The full-scale continuous miner gallery provides tight control of test parameters so that dust and gas concentration changes can be attributed to the specific use of one or more control technologies. Gallery configurations that can be controlled include face ventilation, water spray system parameters, machine mounted dust collector operation, mining height, and mining machine position. Respirable coal mine dust and sulfur hexafloride tracer gas are released between the rotating machine drum and mining face. These airborne contaminates can be measured at multiple locations around the mining machine to study their response to engineering control technologies being tested. Engineering control technologies tested and found to reduce dust and gas levels in the continuous miner dust gallery have a higher level of certainty to be successful in an underground mine environment.

Site:  Pittsburgh Research Laboratory