Performance Comparison of Emergency Stoppings

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dougherty, Heather N. ; Martikainen AL ; Taylor, Charles D. ; Dougherty, Heather N. ; Martikainen AL ; Taylor, Charles D.
• Description:
  Pressurisation of a mine intake entry can be achieved through the use of check curtains, inflatable stoppings, and parachute stoppings. These devices, when correctly placea in an intake entry, can increase tfie pressure out-bye and prevent air leakage from adjacent entries. The use of these devices minimises contamination of the intake escapeway in the event of a fire in an adjacent belt entry. The study was inspired by the recommendation of research on escapeway safety as stated in The Final Report of the Technical Study Panel on the Utilisation of Belt Ar and the Composition and Fire Retardant Properties of Belt Materials in Underground Coal Mining. The debate on the safety and usefulness of the devices is ongoing. Also, emergency stoppings have not been compared side by side to evaluate their effectiveness, ease of use, and cost. This paper evaluates feasibility of the emergency stoppings and provides guidelines for their effective operation. A comparative evaluation of a parachute stopping, an inflatable stopping, a roof-mounted check curtain and a perimeter-mounted check curtain was performed to document the pressurising effects, the leakage prevention capabilities between an intake escapeway and an adjacent neutral entry, the ease of use, and cost. The perimeter-mounted check curtain outperformed the other emergency stoppings with its ease of use and good pressurisation characteristics that created a 200 Pa pressure differential across the device. The parachute stopping had few installation requirements and a strong overall performance. The inflatable stopping should be improved to better meet the requirements relevant to an emergency. The roofmounted check curtain was found to be unsuitable for emergency use. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Environmental Monitoring Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Air-flow Coal-mining Mine-disasters Mine-fires Mine-seals Mining-industry Underground-mining Ventilation Ventilation-systems
• Series:
  Mining Publications   ; Mining Publications  
• ISSN:
  0368-3206
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article ; Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OMSHR - Office of Mine Safety and Health Research ; OMSHR - Office of Mine Safety and Health Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health ; Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America ; North America
• Pages in Document:
  14-20
• Volume:
  65
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20042262
• Citation:
  J Mine Vent Soc S Afr 2012 Oct/Dec; 65(4):14-20
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• NORA Priority Area:
  Mining ; Mining
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of the Mine Ventilation Society of South Africa
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b2d29e2fa9900cc374090e079aa7db801e7b7ac4535170734b3869bf0d6e32e1247f470fc62407a1753a2733ef7468d286ebe1b20b5a5600a068b2f3db218638
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/227530/cdc_227530_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.17 MB ]