scholarly journals OHS RISK ASSESSMENT – A CASE STUDY FOR UNDERGROUND COAL MINING ELECTRICIANS

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlad Mihai Pasculescu ◽  
Dragos Pasculescu ◽  
Marius Simion Morar ◽  
Marius Cornel Suvar ◽  
Ligia Ioana Tuhut
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
Hard Coal ◽  
Electrical Injury ◽  
Underground Coal Mining ◽  
Specific System ◽  
Risk Levels ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Risk Processes

Risk assessment is a concept introduced for analysing the safety level in workplaces in order to assess if enough and proper precautions have been taken or if their number and quality should be improved so that to prevent hazardous situations. The underground coal mining industry is very hazardous, facing serious fatalities related to work, workplaces and workers as a consequence of the high-risk processes carried out underground and of the hazardous toxic and explosive atmosphere. The use of electrical equipment in such hazardous atmospheres (underground or surface) presents a series of particularities, the workers operating this equipment being exposed to electrical injury. The starting point for the optimization of the activity for preventing work accidents and occupational diseases in a system is represented by the risk assessment of that specific system. Regardless if it is a workplace, a workshop or an enterprise, such an analysis allows the ranking of risks depending on their dimension and the efficient allocation of resources for priority measures. Risk assessment involves identifying all risk factors in the analysed system and quantifying their size based on the combination of two parameters: the severity and frequency of the maximum possible consequence on the human body. This results in partial risk levels for each risk factor, respectively global risk levels for the entire system analysed. In order to facilitate the fulfilment of the legal obligations of the employers in the field of risk assessment of accidents and occupational disease, a relatively large number of methods have been designed and used. Of the many methods used worldwide for assessing the risk of accidents, within this article is used a risk assessment method developed by a Romanian Institute for Research and Development in Labour Safety Bucharest, the paper dealing with a case study in an underground coal hard coal mine carried out for presenting the practicality of this method, in case of assessing the risks of electrical injury of mining electricians.

Occupational injuries in underground coal mining in Serbia: A case study

Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ivana Ilić Krstić ◽  
Danijela Avramović ◽  
Snežana Živković
Keyword(s):  
Coal Mining ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Occupational Injuries ◽  
Underground Coal Mining ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Employee Safety ◽  
Injury Data ◽  
Safety And Health

BACKGROUND: Mining, especially underground coal mining, has always been a hazardous occupation. Injuries, including those that are fatal, are a major occupational risk that all miners have to face. OBJECTIVE: Despite the fact that all workers are aware of the risks, efforts must be made to increase their safety through the implementation of preventive measures. METHODS: This retrospective study includes injury data from all nine Serbian coal mines over a 16-year period, from 2000 to 2016. All injury data were collected from employee safety and health records. RESULTS: In the analyzed period, a total of 9,273 occupational injuries were recorded at Resavica. The highest number of occupational injuries (over 600) were recorded in 2008 (669), 2004 (651), and 2005 (603). The data shows that almost one fifth of the total number of occupational injuries, or 20.74%, occurred during the said three years. On average, 493.06 minor, 51.12 severe, and 1.29 fatal injuries occurred each year. Every day there were 1.29 minor occupational injuries and every seven days there was one severe injury. CONCLUSIONS: Despite indications that there is a connection between some of the variables and the number of injuries, the general conclusion is that injuries are accidental and unpredictable. The high percentages of injuries are due to the organization of work and the age or qualification structure of the staff and, of course, are the consequence of likelihood –the greater the number of workers, the greater the likelihood of injury. However, the present study showed that some measures can be taken to increase occupational safety and reduce the number of injuries.

Dynamic safety prewarning mechanism of human–machine–environment using computer vision

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1813-1833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenpei Xu ◽  
Ting-Kwei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Computer Vision ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Safety Information ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Risk Indicators ◽  
Risk Assessment Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Risk Levels

PurposeThis study provides a safety prewarning mechanism, which includes a comprehensive risk assessment model and a safety prewarning system. The comprehensive risk assessment model is capable of assessing nine safety indicators, which can be categorised into workers’ behaviour, environment and machine-related safety indicators, and the model is embedded in the safety prewarning system. The safety prewarning system can automatically extract safety information from surveillance cameras based on computer vision, assess risks based on the embedded comprehensive risk assessment model, categorise risks into five levels and provide timely suggestions.Design/methodology/approachFirstly, the comprehensive risk assessment model is constructed by adopting grey multihierarchical analysis method. The method combines the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the grey clustering evaluation in the grey theory. Expert knowledge, obtained through the questionnaire approach, contributes to set weights of risk indicators and evaluate risks. Secondly, a safety prewarning system is developed, including data acquisition layer, data processing layer and prewarning layer. Computer vision is applied in the system to automatically extract real-time safety information from the surveillance cameras. The safety information is then processed through the comprehensive risk assessment model and categorized into five risk levels. A case study is presented to verify the proposed mechanism.FindingsThrough a case study, the result shows that the proposed mechanism is capable of analyzing integrated human-machine-environment risk, timely categorising risks into five risk levels and providing potential suggestions.Originality/valueThe comprehensive risk assessment model is capable of assessing nine risk indicators, identifying three types of entities, workers, environment and machine on the construction site, presenting the integrated risk based on nine indicators. The proposed mechanism, which adopts expert knowledge through Building Information Modeling (BIM) safety simulation and extracts safety information based on computer vision, can perform a dynamic real-time risk analysis, categorize risks into five risk levels and provide potential suggestions to corresponding risk owners. The proposed mechanism can allow the project manager to take timely actions.

The Application of Approximate Reasoning Methodologies to Offshore Engineering Design Based on Risk Assessment

Volume 3 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Eleye-Datubo ◽  
H. S. Sii ◽  
J. Wang ◽  
J. B. Yang ◽  
J. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Approximate Reasoning ◽  
Technical Failure ◽  
Process Technology ◽  
Safety Control ◽  
Assessment Task ◽  
Risk Levels ◽  
Offshore Engineering

In dealing with complex and ill-defined systems of an offshore application, modelling of human reasoning for the purpose of risk assessment requires the effectiveness of a systematic logic-based approach. Floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) installations, for example, combine traditional process technology with marine technology, and thus are quite dependent on technical design and operational safety control. Such safety-critical dependencies require novel approaches to properly analyse the risk involved. Hence, a proposed framework utilising approximate reasoning and evidential reasoning approaches is provided for modelling the assessment task. As based on fuzzy set theory, the model enables uncertainties to be described mathematically and further processed in the analysis of the structures. The forms of membership functions that could be used in representing fuzzy linguistic variables to quantify risk levels are presented. A case study of collision risk between FPSO and shuttle tanker due to technical failure during tandem offloading operation is used in this paper to illustrate the application of the proposed model. Furthermore, the obtained results from the case study provide confirmation that at various stages of offshore engineering systems design process the framework of incorporated approximate reasoning is a suited and convenient tool for attaining reliable risk analysis.

scholarly journals Case Analysis of Damages to Control Hydraulics of the Leg in the Powered Roof Support Section

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 03013
Author(s):  
Janina Świątek ◽  
Kazimierz Stoiński
Keyword(s):  
Coal Mining ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Hard Coal ◽  
Support Section ◽  
Full Extension ◽  
Safety Measures ◽  
Bench Tests ◽  
Hard Coal Mining ◽  
Roof Support

The article discusses a case of security hazard in a longwall equipped with a properly selected chock shield support with two legs, technically efficient, introduced to the market and for operation in compliance with the requirements covering Polish hard coal mining. As a cause of the hazard an accidental coincidence was indicated, such as the occurrence of a tremor at an area with unfavourable geometry for the operation of the support section and leg (including the shift of the double-telescopic leg from the 1st to the 2nd hydraulic stage) at the time of the mining process. Immediate safety measures were applied successfully. They were aimed at minimizing the conditions dangerous to the crew. The section was withdrawn and spragged again. As a result, the leg operated in full extension mode of the 1st hydraulic stage, obtaining the required strength and geometry of the section and leg. The presented case study will be additionally supplemented in the future with selected analytical and bench tests.

AVAILABILITY AND RELIABILITY MODELING OF AN INTEGRATED UNDERGROUND COAL MINING SYSTEM

1995 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 203-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHUNMING DUAN ◽  
ERTUGRUL TOPUZ
Keyword(s):  
Coal Mining ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Stochastic Systems ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
Underground Coal Mining ◽  
Mining System ◽  
Reliability Modeling

This paper presents a systematic approach to evaluation of the availability of an automated underground coal mining system, the longwall system. Five analytical models are developed by applying the techniques of reliability modeling and stochastic systems analysis. Each model is formulated to evaluate the availability of a longwall system with unique longwall operating logic. The application of these models is illustrated with a case study and the uses of the results are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document