Quantitative Risk Assessment of Miners Injury During Explosions of Methane-Dust-Air Mixtures in Underground Workings

E.I. Kabanov; G.I. Korshunov; R.D. Magomet

doi:10.6180/jase.202102_24(1).0014

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Miners Injury During Explosions of Methane-Dust-Air Mixtures in Underground Workings

E.I. Kabanov This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹ , G.I. Korshunov¹ , and R.D. Magomet¹

¹Department of Industrial Safety, Saint Petersburg Mining University, 21st Line, 2, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Received: March 26, 2020
Accepted: September 20, 2020
Publication Date: February 1, 2021

Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.202102_24(1).0014

ABSTRACT

The article proposes procedural guidelines of quantitative assessment of probability of coal miners’ injury upon methane/coal dust/air explosions in mine excavations. In the course of calculating the indicator of the effective energy storage of the explosive mixture, quantitative dependences of the excess explosion pressure on the initial parameters of the mixture have been established, taking into account the initial content of combustible components. Models are presented that allow determining the change in the magnitude of excessive pressure in the shockwave front as it passes through the excavations, taking into account the aerodynamic, geometric and topological parameters of mine excavations. With the further use of the probit analysis, a model is proposed for quantifying the probability of fatal injury to miners, taking into account the distance to the explosion area boundaries, initial composition and amount of explosive mixture, parameters of excavations. For the purposes of verification of the proposed method, injury probability upon methane/coal dust/air explosion in the preparation face of the mine at different distances from explosion area boundary is determined, the size of dangerous area is defined. It is indicated that the given method of probabilistic assessment has practical significance in the management of professional risks caused by underground explosions: in particular, in determining the safe distances during explosions, choosing the parameters of protective measures, and designing barrier protective equipment.

Keywords: coal mine, labor safety, risk-oriented approach, professional risk, shockwave, probit model.

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