Slope stability is one of the most important issues in open pit mining design. The main purpose of any open pit mine design is to propose an optimal excavation configuration, considering safety, ore recovery and financial return. An accurate pit slope design which accounts for the mine geology, structural geology, rock mass properties, and hydrogeology models of the mine area, drastically enhan...

The most important aspect of the MINER Act is providing reliable communication for miners before and after tragic accidents. Reliable communication has always been a challenge in underground mines due to changing topologies and harsh environment. In addition, disasters disable electricity and communications cables, block tunnels and cause fire. These may damage the communication infrastructure ...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers have investigated seat design issues for the occupants and operators of underground mine transport vehicles relative to wholebody vibration (WBV) and mechanical shock. Considering the ergonomic and engineering improvements made to underground mine shuttle car seats, this study has focused on reducing injury risk by im...

Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regulations require underground coal mines to use refuge alternatives (RAs) to provide a breathable air environment for 96 hrs. One of the main concerns with the use of mobile RAs is the heat and humidity buildup inside the RA. The accumulation of heat and humidity can result in miners suffering heat stress or even death. To investigate this issue, t...

Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are conducting mine illumination research with the objective of improving miner safety. Slips, trips, and falls (STFs) are the second leading accident class (18.1%, n = 2,374) of nonfatal lost-time injuries at underground mines (MSHA, 2005-2009). Factors contributing to STFs include recognition of hazards as well a...

The accurate selection of a processing plant site can result in decreasing total mining cost. This problem can be solved by multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. This research introduces a new approach by integrating fuzzy AHP and gray MCDM methods to solve all decision-making problems. The approach is applied in the case of a copper mine area. The critical criteria are considered adja...

BACKGROUND The use of formative research as a critical component of intervention planning is highly supported in the literature. However, studies that report such processes in practice are minimal. This paper reports on the formative data collection and analysis that informed the development of a multilevel intervention that utilizes mine assessment technology to bridge health communication bet...