Regulations on worker exposure to diesel particulate matter (DPM) are becoming increasingly stringent in the mining industry. Due to the complexity and unpredictability of this aerosol, there is a need for new tools to help mines develop an effective strategy to reduce DPM concentrations. To address these needs, NIOSH has developed a portable elemental carbon monitoring device for use in underg...

Miniaturised sensors and networking are technical proven concepts. Both the technologies are proven and various components e.g., sensors, controls, etc. are commercially available. Technology scene in above areas presents enormous possibilities for developing innovative applications for real life situations. Mining operations in many countries have lot of scope for improving environmental and s...

Surface Penetrating Radars (SPR) are extensively used in Military, Civil, Geophysical and Archaeological applications. In recent times there has been an increasing emphasis on the use of SPRs in the identification of the buried unexploded ordnance, such as anti tank mines, antipersonnel mines etc., which can be metallic or plastic in nature. Mine detection methods can be classified as destructi...

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. When exposed to air and water, metal sulfides from the deposits of the mines are oxidized and produce acid, metal ions and sulfate, which lower the pH value of the water. An open limestone channel (OLC) is a passive and low cost way to neutralize AMD. The dissolution of calcium into the water increases the p...

Introduction My PhD research focuses on the social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age with case studies from the Alpine area. One aspect of this is the interrelationship of the technologies used to create flexible, thin sheets of material that can be wrapped, folded, shaped and tied. This includes fibre-based cloth such as textiles, netting and twining as well as animal skins (le...

Severe natural conditions and complex terrain make it difficult to apply precise localization in underground mines. In this paper, an anchor-free localization method for mobile targets is proposed based on non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (Multi-dimensional Scaling: MDS) and rank sequence. Firstly, a coal mine wireless sensor network is constructed in underground mines based on the ZigBee t...

Wireless sensor networks deployed in coal mines could help companies provide workers working in coal mines with more qualified working conditions. With the underground information collected by sensor nodes at hand, the underground working conditions could be evaluated more precisely. However, sensor nodes may tend to malfunction due to their limited energy supply. In this paper, we study the cr...

Predicting the degree of burial of mines in soft sediments is one of the main concerns of Naval Mine CounterMeasures (MCM) operations. This is a difficult problem to solve due to uncertainties and variability of the sediment parameters (i.e., density and shear strength) and of the mine state at contact with the seafloor (i.e., vertical and horizontal velocity, angular rotation rate, and pitch a...

What is a landmine? The purpose of a landmine is to disable, immobilize or kill. It is an explosive device activated either by a person or vehicle, or command detonated by electric wire or radio signal. Most landmines are laid on or just below the surface of the ground and are activated by pressure or trip-wire. Normally manufactured from very durable materials such as plastic, bakelite, concre...