Characterization of visible dust plumes from surface coal mine highwall drills

Details

• Personal Author:
  Cocalis, Joseph C.
• Description:
  Situation: Surface coal mine highwall drill dust exposure has been liked to silicosis. Traditional gravimetric sampling, using cyclones, may not identify peak exposures that are believed to occur when visible dust plumes are present. Characterization of these exposure peaks is important from the standpoint of both health assessment and exposure control. Problems: Short-term high-intensity exposures to respirable crystalline silica have not been well quantified for surface coal mine drilling operations. Resolution: Surface coal mine drill dust plumes were concurrently videotaped and sampled using DataRams, personal impactors, and traditional samplers. The results indicate the presence of respirable dust in all plumes, with short-term peak concentrations of 100-400 mg/m3 typically lasting for up to 10 seconds. How will sharing this work experience benefit other industrial hygiene practitioners? These data can be used for better exposure control, including the design of cabs to withstand peak exposures. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Coal Coal Mining Dust Environmental Monitoring Mining Occupational Health Safety Silicon Dioxide
• Keywords:
  Coal-dust Coal-miners Coal-mining Control-equipment Cyclone-air-samplers Dust-control Dust-exposure Dust-samplers Dust-sampling Dusts Equipment-design Exposure-assessment Gravimetric-analysis Highwall-mining Mine-workers Miners Mining-equipment Mining-industry Respirable-dust Short-term-exposure Silica-dusts Silicosis Surface-mining

  More +
• Publisher:
  American Industrial Hygiene Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Florida ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; Virginia ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DRDS - Division of Respiratory Disease Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  90
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20041664
• Citation:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, May 20-25, 2000, Orlando, Florida. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2000 May; :90
• CAS Registry Number:
  Quartz (SiO2) (CAS RN 14808-60-7) ; Silica (CAS RN 7631-86-9)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2000
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, May 20-25, 2000, Orlando, Florida
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4c01e7d71e207e31ae3b32184e000efbf53fe49be3b763af74edacde84c16bd403084d5d4363f8bc7eaee3a5ba0f0275e647fda01bff317a2c704cdbe283330c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/194163/cdc_194163_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 701.01 KB ]