Respirable Dust Research

Details

• Personal Author:
  Breslin, John A.
• Description:
  The Respirable Dust Research Program of the Bureau of Mines originated with the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. This act established a standard for respirable dust, which is now 2.0 mg/m for the average concentration of respirable dust to which coal miners may be exposed. The act also authorized research "to develop new or improved means and methods of reducing concentrations of respirable dust in the mine atmosphere of active workings of the coal mine." This research is being done by the Bureau of Mines, and some of the results of this work are presented here. The objective of the Bureau's Respirable Dust Research Program is to develop new and improved technology to protect miners against respirable dust. The Bureau's mission concerns only the control and measurement of coal mine dust. We do not do any medical studies since these are the responsibility of NIOSH. MSHA is responsible for the enforcement of the dust standards in mines. However, the Bureau does conduct research to improve the methods for dust measurement in mines to assist MSHA in the enforcement of respirable dust standards. About 30 percent of the Bureau's dust research is done through inhouse research projects; the rest is done through research and development contracts and grants. The inhouse research and monitoring of the outside contracts are done at the Pittsburgh Mining and Safety Research Center and Twin Cities Mining Research Center. The work at Twin Cities is primarily concerned with minimizing the formation of airborne dust by the optimization of mining machine cutting parameters or by the use of wet-head mining machines. The rest of the research on dust measurement and control is either done at or monitored by the Pittsburgh facility. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Coal Coal Mining Dust Mining Occupational Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Coal-miners Coal-mining Dust-analysis Dust-control Dust-exposure Dust-inhalation Dust-measurement Dust-particles Dust-suppression Health-protection Mine-workers Miners Mining-equipment Mining-industry Monitoring-systems Respirable-dust Underground-miners Underground-mining Work-areas Workers Workplace-studies

  More +
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Publisher:
  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  District of Columbia ; OSHA Region 3 ; Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  WO - Washington Office
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  123-131
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20030909
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the 9th Annual Institute on Coal Mining Health, Safety and Research, Blacksburg, Virginia, September 6-8, 1978. Foreman WE, ed., Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1978 Sep; :123-131
• Editor(s):
  Foreman WE
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1978
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the 9th Annual Institute on Coal Mining Health, Safety and Research, Blacksburg, Virginia, September 6-8, 1978
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1846e86fcddf7b0607bd062d26dfdf5a13b2d3dc95d7d091cf7487ed5466a88e79700abc3d2ec9f51d5111a3a32f30380c0d1d7c7476c0a8d6905700465e2501
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/226640/cdc_226640_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.66 MB ]