Introduction
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has many unique physical resources that provide researchers with the tools and environment to conduct world-class research in solving the health and safety problems affecting our nation's mine workers. These physical resources include state-of-the-art laboratories, one-of-a-kind facilities, and research mines. The research mines, and a number of the facilities and laboratories, allow researchers to conduct full-scale experiments before testing an intervention at a working mine site. NIOSH maintains and operates these facilities according to applicable standards and practices.
This section lists the physical infrastructure resources of the NIOSH Mining Research Program. For the purposes of this information system, these resources are organized into the categories of Facilities, Laboratories, and Major Equipment:
- Facilities are locations which do not have a formal Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) or Protocol
- Laboratories are locations which have a formal SOP, or Protocol
- Major Equipment are the more important equipment associated with a laboratory or facility
The site listed for each resource is its actual physical location, and is either PRL (Pittsburgh Research Laboratory), SRL (Spokane Research Laboratory), LLL (Lake Lynn Laboratory), or MIS (Missile Test Site).
The Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL) site is 13 miles south of Pittsburgh. It consists of a 180-acre campus with a number of office and laboratory structures, along with an Experimental Mine and Safety Research Coal Mine. The Experimental Mine was developed in 1910 when the US Bureau of Mines was established, mainly to study coal mine fires and explosions. The Safety Research Coal Mine, which became operational in the early 1970s, is a room-an-pillar operation about the size of a working section in a commercial coal mine. Other unique facilities at PRL include the Mine Roof Simulator, the Acoustical Testing Laboratory, the Full-Scale Longwall Dust Gallery, and the Human Performance Research Mine.
The Spokane Research Laboratory (SRL) site is located just north of the downtown Spokane, Washington business area. It consists of a 2-story office and laboratory complex and associated buildings. One major equipment, the IMPAC 3636 Mark II free fall shock testing machine, is used to simulate impulsive forces experienced by heavy equipment operators that may contribute to sprains and strains and other lower back injuries.
The Lake Lynn Laboratory (LLL) is located 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. It consists of an underground limestone mine and surface quarry area. The underground mine portion is a sophisticated underground facility for conducting large-scale explosion trials and mine fire research. Entries are sized to match those of commercial mines, making them authentic, full-scale test galleries. Other facilities located at LLL are the Hydrostatic Testing Chambers for Mine Seals, the Fire Gallery, the Fire Suppression Facility, and the Explosives Testing Site.
The Missile Test Site (MIS) is an old Department of Defense missile launch location about 20 miles west of Spokane. This site consists of 20 acres of land and an underground and surface building complex. The site allows for various full-scale experiments to be conducted to support the mining research program. A unique laboratory is the Dynamic Materials Testing Laboratory, developed to characterize the response of rock to explosive loading.
