Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Optimizing health and safety in transitioning from surface to underground mines
With around a century of history in transitioning from surface to underground mining and
even though more than 80 years has passed since the establishment of the ?rst mine safety
act in the US, we are yet to see a comprehensive health and safety considerate planning,
design, and operation in such a mining environment. However, transitioning from surface to
underground mining requires careful planning, adequate training, and robust safety
measures to mitigate the health and safety risks associated with working in such a complex
environment.
If approved by the government, in this 5-year long project, a team of ten experts including
four professors along with four PhD and two MSc students will work on the four main pillars
of a transition from surface to underground, namely, ground control, production planning,
?eet management, and ventilation to provide the partners and agencies with health and
safety considerate transition plan. Analyzing impact of surface activity on underground and
vice versa, in each of above-mentioned pillars, predicting possible health and safety risk
resulting from those impacts, and ?nally prioritizing and minimizing those risks, with four
distinct, yet, highly interacting projects, this endeavor will conclude with a comprehensive
best practice guideline to be used by the partner organizations in their already transitioned,
in transition, or planned to transition mining operation to plan, design, and operate with
optimum health and safety considerations.
A part from the ?nal deliverable, structuring the projects on agile management strategy and
utilizing Kaizen technique from lean production approach, semi-annual meetings will be
held with the partners to continually improve the works by receiving feedbacks on the interim
?ndings and inputs for the next steps so that the applicability of the ?ndings are veri?ed.
Status | Active |
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Effective start/end date | 9/30/24 → 9/29/25 |
Funding
- National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health: $249,999.00
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