Open Cut

A Review of Global Industry Health and Safety ‘Voluntary Initiatives’

The term 'Voluntary Initiative' (VI) is self-explanatory.  An initiative that is undertaken without some form of external mandatory compulsion is voluntary.

Formal VIs have been established in various industries around the world to advance many areas of common interest ....  read more

A Vehicle Interaction Causal Factors Database And Risk Management Decision Making Tool

Collisions between mine vehicles and between vehicles and personnel or infrastructure do occur in the mining industry and can result in fatal injuries.

This report provides a statistical analysis of 310 mining collision incidents around the world.  

While ....  read more

Active Vibration Isolation Seat Development

This report details work undertaken to implement an actively isolated vehicle seat. The research involved the trials of fully-actively-damped hydraulically powered seats and a semi-actively damped seat. The term semi-active refers to the configuration in which an actively controlled damper is ....  read more

Active Vibration-Isolation Seat Development

This project sought to improve the ride in heavy off-road mining vehicles by replacing the spring-isolation system in a normal operator's seat with a hydraulic actuator assembly which responds actively to movement of the cab, moving the seat vertically in the opposite direction to cab to ....  read more

An Information Sharing System for Vehicle Interactions

As a way of sustaining the investment, technology and industry knowledge captured in RISKGATE the current project assesses how RISKGATE information has contributed to a new ICMM/EMESRT web based knowledge management system for managing vehicle related hazards on mine sites. It describes the ....  read more

Assessing the Impact of Consecutive Night Shifts on Night-time Alertness, Daytime Sleep and Timing of the Circadian System

In the Australian coal mining industry, most guidelines for managing the risks associated with human fatigue recommend a maximum limit of four consecutive 12-hour night shifts. This approach is consistent with the prevailing view of experts in the fields of sleep and circadian rhythms. ....  read more

Automated Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk Assessment

This project has developed wearable sensors that obtain musculoskeletal data from workers, analyse tasks and generate scored manual handling risk assessments. The sensors deliver data to a simple-to-use App with the only task for the user being to start and stop analysing the activity. The App ....  read more

Building, Fitting and Testing an Acoustic Agglomerator to Reduce or Eliminate Dust Loading from the Machine House on Draglines

This report covers ACARP project C18029, Building, Fitting and Testing an Acoustic Agglomerator to Reduce or Eliminate Dust Loading from the Machine House on Draglines. The aim of the project is to use acoustic agglomeration techniques to reduce respirable dust particulate mass (<10 ....  read more

Case Study of Human Centred Design of New Technology in Mining

The design process reflected the requirements of ISO 9241-210 Ergonomics of human-system interaction Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems. A multidisciplinary design team followed an iterative process that:

• commenced with a thorough understanding of users,

Collision Avoidance for Mine Haul Trucks

A suite of new collision avoidance systems (CAS) is presented for use in heavy vehicles whose structure and size necessarily impede driver visibility is introduced.  The main goal of the project was to determine the appropriate use of each of the commercially available technologies ....  read more

Collision Avoidance System

The Objective of this project was to develop and demonstrate a collision prevention system prototype that improves safety and eliminates the noise problems caused by the current heavy vehicle reversing alarm system.

A prototype system was developed and demonstrated to achieve the ....  read more

Collision Avoidance System 3

The aim of this project was to continue the work initiated in project C7012 - Collision Avoidance System 1 (CAS 1) and Project C8034 Collision Avoidance System 2 (CAS 2). In particular, the extension from RF tagging on individuals and vehicles to the demonstration of the utility of radar ....  read more

Collision Prevention System

The aim of this project was to continue the work commenced in ACARP Project C7012 Collision Avoidance System 1. In particular, the extension from RF tagging on individuals and vehicles to the demonstration of radar and ultrasonic based object detection systems to forewarn of potential ....  read more

Continuous Monitoring of Whole-Body Vibration and Jolts and Jars Associated with Operating Earth Moving Equipment at Surface Coal Mines

Long term exposure to whole body vibration causes a range of adverse health effects, particularly back disorders. Operators of surface mining earth- moving equipment are known to be exposed to significant whole-body vibration amplitudes. Workplace management of the risks associated with this ....  read more

Development and Application of Risk-Cost-Benefit Decision Support Tools RCB Gen and RCE Method

This report supports the industry's on-going efforts to manage risk to ALARP and achieve Zero Harm by providing a new method to more effectively establish the adequacy of controls.

Operating mines, both open cut and underground, are required to find a balance between acceptable ....  read more

Development and Testing the Feasibility and Acceptability of Health-e Mines

The aim of this project was to develop, implement and evaluate Health-e Mines, a world-first online platform specifically developed and tailored for those who work in the Australian coal mining industry,  ....  read more

Development of a Risk Management Tool for Shiftwork in the Mining Industry

This project developed practical risk management tools that could be used by the mining industry to:

• assess health and safety risks associated with fatigue and shiftwork;
• identify and assess current and potential control measures;
• identify and assess measures

Development of a Whole Body Vibration Dosimeter for the Coal Mining Industry

For many Coal Mining operators, back injury now accounts for more OH&S claims than any other single factor. While back injury can arise from many factors, a well-documented leading cause is the exposure of workers to vibration, e.g. the vibrations experienced by operators of heavy ....  read more

Development of Australia-Specific PM10 Emission Factors for Coal Mines

The purpose of this project is to conduct further analysis and investigation to provide an additional level of assurance to previous project C22027 Development of Australia-Specific PM10 Emission Factors for Coal Mines.

The driver for this research stems from a detailed peer review, ....  read more

Development of the Operability and Maintainability Analysis Technique for Use with Large Surface Haul Trucks

This report describes research that developed and trialled the Operability and Maintainability Analysis Technique (OMAT) for large haul trucks operating at surface mines. OMAT was developed to help identify, prioritize and eliminate or mitigate any potential safety issues found in new and ....  read more

Dragline Machine House Dust Control Field Testing Of Alternative Cartridge Technologies

Following the findings from project ACARP #C17034 into dust control on dragline machine houses, a cartridge filtration concept similar to the AirScrubPro" system in use on the P&H 4100 XPB/C shovels was identified as a potential solution to explore in the development of alternative ....  read more

Earthmover Rim and Wheel Safety - A study to investigate uncontrolled tyre rim disassembly

Rim disassembly is extremely hazardous and has been the cause of several tyre fatalities. To better control this fatal hazard a mechanical interference feature, often called the Surelock3 bead seat band, was patented in 1986. This design prevents the inflation and consequential dangerous ....  read more

Effective and Efficient Implementation of Critical Control Management in the Australian Coal Mining Industry by 2020

Everyone in the Australian coal mining industry will probably recognise a Pike River victim or be reminded of a work mate, friend, son or brother. Pike River, New Zealand was another avoidable coal mining catastrophe. Like all catastrophes there are many lessons to learn, one of which was the ....  read more

Emissions from Spoil Pile Fires

The project arose from considerations of the possible effects of the emissions from spontaneous combustion in spoil piles on the occupational health and safety of mine workers. Fires from spontaneous combustion can be associated with open cut and underground ....  read more

Establishment of Hours of Work Risk Factors Relevant to Coal Mining

The objective of this project was to determine the principal variations in accident and incident risk in relation to roster design within the Australian Coal Mining Industry.   These were determined by analysing the accident and incident statistics for a wide range of coalmine ....  read more

Feasibility and Acceptability of Strategies to Address Mental Health in Coal Mining in New South Wales and Queensland

Improving the understanding of mental health problems, overcoming stigma and promoting advice seeking and support from available services, are all important steps in addressing the challenges for the workplace in addressing mental health.

The research team was awarded funding for a ....  read more

'Fit For Purpose’ Tyre Maintenance Equipment And Management Practises For Non-earthmover Mining Vehicles

Tyres, rims and wheel assemblies are safety critical items which must be maintained and used correctly to achieve levels of acceptable risk. Inadequate tyre and rim maintenance carries considerable inherent risks of personal injury and death, as tragically confirmed through several tyre and rim ....  read more

Human Centred Hazard Education in OTR Tyre Handling Per the EMERST Control Framework

The nationally recognised competency requirements for tyre servicing do not adequately address the human factors required in handling off-the-road mining equipment tyres and rims.  This project described a human factors approach to elicit knowledge from domain experts on tyre handling ....  read more

Human Factors Aspects of Tyre Handling Equipment Design and Operation Examined within an EMESRT Control Framework Approach

The primary objective of this project was to analyse the trye handling operations, consider the equipment types, and align with the initiatives of the mining industry to reduce exposure to unwanted and adverse events through improved equipment and work design.

Over three phases, this ....  read more

Human Factors Design for Diversity within an EMESRT Control Framework

The outcome of earlier project C28034 was the identification of 14 credible failures modes with respect to worker diversity associated with operation and maintenance of surface coal mining equipment. The objectives of this project were to build upon the previous report to provide additional ....  read more

Human Factors Engineering and Large Surface Mining Equipment

Mobile equipment related accidents are the most common accidents in Australian mining. Investigations usually identify human error as a contributing factor. Human error analysis on some events has found that error is due to equipment design problems, either in operability or ....  read more

Improved Safety of Tyre-Handling Equipment

The objective of this project was to examine two methods for improving the safety of handling large mining tyres using tyre handlers. These two high risk issues identified are, security of the tyre while being manoeuvred, and the interaction between personnel and the handler while aligning the ....  read more

Improving Visual Communication of OH&S in Coal Mines

In the first stage of the project we looked at how visual OH&S communication is currently working at two coal mines in New South Wales. Our findings were consistent across both sites and provide us with some clear directions and working hypotheses.

We found that, ....  read more

Intelligent Dumper & Hauler Suspension Systems (IDHSS)

The objective of this project  was to produce a prototype retrofit suspension upgrade package for dumpers and haulers which would allow the suspension characteristics to be optimised according to the load state of the vehicle.  The primary ....  read more

Intelligent Dumper and Hauler Suspension System (IDHSS) - Stage 3

The aim of this project is to extend and enhance the IDHSS retro-fittable suspension upgrade package which was developed with the funding assistance of ACARP projects C3103 and C4013. This system adjusted suspension parameters to the optimum settings for the vehicle load condition ....  read more

Interface Design for Haul Truck Proximity Advisory Systems

Proximity advisory systems have potential to reduce collision risks associated with surface mining haul trucks by assisting truck drivers to maintain situation awareness. The design of the visual interface by which information is provided is likely to influence the effectiveness of such ....  read more

Interface Design for Haul Truck Proximity Advisory Systems

The aim of this project was to develop methods and tools to assist the coal industry to better monitor the consequences of longwall mine subsidence (LWMS) on surface environments.  The project focus was to improve monitoring quality and potentially reduce costs through the incorporation of ....  read more

Investigation of Intelligent Dumper Hauler System

The current 'Intelligent Dumper and Hauler Suspension System' (IDHSS) project has evolved from a suspension system concept conceived by Birrana Engineering Pty Ltd.  This report documents work conducted to investigate the feasibility of the ....  read more

Investigation of Mine Road Watering Practice for Development of Engineering Solutions to Improve Safety

This Report offers a summary of current practice of haul road dust suppression in the Australian coal industry and makes recommendations for improvements. 

The findings of the Project are based on a inspection of haul road construction and dust suppression practices at ....  read more

ISOLgate: World First Isolation Risk Management Decision Support Tool

This report introduces the recently developed online and publicly accessible ISOLgate: Isolation Causal Factors Database (http://www.mirmgate.com.au/isolgate) and describes its unique and innovative features. But most importantly the report explains the team's journey in developing Gates, ....  read more

Managing Whole Body Vibration at Surface Coal Mines

The web page ergonomics.uq.edu.au/wbv provides information about the project including a link to the free WBV application and java application tool, documentation and manual.  This will be a great benefit to the industry.

This project has validated, implemented, and evaluated the ....  read more

Mining Equipment Human Factors Design for Workforce Diversity

The objectives of the project were to:

• Identify and describe design issues with current mining equipment that are a barrier to workforce diversity;
• Document and evaluate remedial control measures currently undertaken at sites; and to
• Communicate the results

New Knowledge Elicitation Methods to Capture Risks Related to Mobile Mining Equipment

This report describes research that examined two innovative knowledge elicitation techniques to collect information about mobile mining equipment risks and to ultimately help identify potential controls. It focused on both experienced and inexperienced operators. The work was in three ....  read more

Noise Reduction Using Smart Speakers

The objective of the project was to demonstrate significant noise reduction for the operators of heavy mining vehicles, using 'smart speakers' which attenuate machine generated noise at the ears of the operator. The term 'smart speakers' refers to the application of an Active ....  read more

Occurrence of Fires on Vehicles - This is an Australian Standard to order go to www.infostore.saiglobal.com and search AS 5062

The outcomes of this ACARP project is now an Australian Standard.

To order go to www.infostore.saiglobal.com and search AS 5062

There is no report published via ACARP.

In February 2000, ACARP funded a scoping study to investigate the frequency and ....  read more

Open Path Boundary Monitoring

The objective of this work was to investigate suitable options and implement a real-time monitoring method that would provide accurate detection of PM movement across significant and critical sections of a site boundary, with the potential to be visualised in real-time.

Open Platform Mine Equipment Communications and Proximity Warning System

This project seeks to develop an open-architecture communications system to allow for real-time data sharing between mobile and fixed plant units operating in an open-cut mine environment. The concept is to deliver the data sharing functionality by making use of existing hardware and ....  read more

Operator Fatigue Detection and Countermeasure Development

In this project we have developed a prototype technology for measuring and reporting an individual's fatigue, with the intention that such a technology could be used to prevent fatigue-related injuries in the Australian coal mining industry. The technology, known as the Smart Cap system, ....  read more

PDS Validation Framework

Due to the harsh environments that may be present at a mine site, vehicle collisions and interactions can be commonplace. Of more concern are the dynamic nature and complexity of these interactions - especially when considering the catastrophic nature of an interaction that involves high-risk ....  read more

Procedures and Devices to Monitor Operator Alertness Whilst Operating Machinery - Stage 3

This project was aimed at building on the extensive experience of fatigue-related issues gained in the road safety area to develop solutions for the open-cut coal mining industry. It followed the parent projects that investigated technological solutions to fatigue and developed pilot trials to ....  read more

Procedures and Devices to Monitor Operator Alertness Whilst Operating Machinery in Open Cut Coal Mines: Stage 1: State-of-the-art Review, Stage 2: Development of Pilot Program

Stage 1 of this project focused upon the identification of an appropriate fatigue monitoring device for implementation into the open-cut coal mining industry. The project team resolved that a device similar to the Roadguard stimuli-reaction task would be the most appropriate for ....  read more

Proximity Detection Device Interoperability

This report presents the results of research and industry collaborations undertaken as part of ACARP project C24034. The primary task of the project was to facilitate and assist the working group gathered together by EMESRT as representatives of the major OEM and proximity system vendors. The ....  read more

Real Time Safety Monitor and Alert System for Tyre Handling

Multiple industry articles, studies and mining OH&S statistics show that removing, handling and reinstallation and other maintenance activities involving heavy vehicle tyres, particularly from haul trucks and large wheel loaders, continue to be one of the most hazardous activities ....  read more

Reducing Musculoskeletal Risk in Open Cut Coal Mining

Across all industries, approximately 40% of injuries are musculoskeletal injuries associated with manual tasks. The majority of these injuries are believed to be preventable without any loss of productivity. The prevalence may be even higher in coal mining, where musculoskeletal injuries ....  read more

Reducing Risk-Taking Among Australian Miners

This project undertook an exploratory investigation of the causes of risk taking among Australian coal miners. Risk taking has long been identified in the literature as a contributory factor in accidents, injuries, and fatalities within the coal mining industry. Past research has primarily ....  read more

Reflective Material for Improving Night Time Driving on Haul Roads

The objective of this project was to identify materials that could be used to enhance the night time driveability of coal mine haul roads. Materials that could be used as either a reflective coating on haul roads or roadside berms or as part of the road ....  read more

Relevance and Applicability of inhalable Dust and Current Issues with AS3640

The main aim of this project is to investigate the relevance and applicability of inhalable dust monitoring program implemented by Australian coal mining industry at the present, identify any issues with AS3640 - Workplace atmospheres - method for sampling and gravimetric determination of ....  read more

Risk Controls Knowledge: Determining Leading Practice From Case Study Analysis

Increasingly the Australian mining industry is being encouraged to manage operational risks which have the potential to cause fatal or catastrophic events using critical control management (CCM) approaches. This next phase in workplace health and safety risk management follows the journey ....  read more

Safety Integrity Level Validation for Satellite Navigation Technologies

For future mine machinery automation, GNSS navigation technologies offer significant advantages over traditional mechanical positioning sensors for the purposes of machine location, collision avoidance etc. They are reliable, accurate, and require no calibration and minimal maintenance. With ....  read more

Selection and Optimisation of Risk Controls

The Australian coal mining industry recognises it is important to have effective controls to successfully manage risks. The importance of improving risk control has also been highlighted by the ICMM who suggest that "the top factors for why fatalities, serious injuries, serious diseases ....  read more

Specification of Impact Protection for Operator Seating of Mining Equipment

Recent Whole-Body Vibration (WBV) research indicates the degeneration of the human spine is caused by the accumulation of vibration shocks (or 'peaks') rather than many hours of low level vibration. Operators of heavy coal mining equipment are exposed to WBV transmitted through the vehicle ....  read more

Strategies to Transition the Major Coal Industry Stakeholders to Risk Based Regulation

Over the last fifteen years or so, there has been a substantial shift away from reliance on prescriptive standards towards systemic risk based WHS management and regulation. There is considerable evidence that this approach, if effectively implemented, can achieve substantial improvements in ....  read more

Trust and Safety in the Coal Mining Sector

This report examines the relationship between trust (and mistrust) and occupational health and safety (OHS) in the Australian coal mining sector. Our previous research in Australian coal mining companies indicated that mistrust is deep-seated at a number of mines, and that these mines are ....  read more

Tyre Fires and Explosions of Earthmover Tyres

Tyre fires and explosions by nature are a high potential hazard for any operator of rubber tyred vehicles with a number of serious incidents and accidents including injuries and fatalities reported throughout the mining industry over the project duration at least 2 earthmover tyre fires ....  read more

Tyre Related Accidents and Incidents - A Study with Recommendations to improve Tyre & Rim Maintenance and Operational Safety of Rubber Tyred Earthmover Equipment

Tyre, rims and wheel assemblies are safety critical items which must be maintained and operated correctly to provide a safe working environment.

Unfortunately less than adequate (LTA) awareness of ‘off the road’ (OTR) tyre and rim related hazards, and lack of ....  read more

TYREgate: A “World First” Risk Management Decision Support Tool for Earthmover Tyres and Rims

This report introduces the recently developed online and publicly accessible TYREgate: Tyres and Rims Risk Management Decision Support Tool (http://www.mirmgate.com/tyregate) and describes its unique and innovative features. TYREgate is a world’s first earthmover tyre and rim related ....  read more

Validating the JobFit System Functional Assessment Method

According to the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, workplace injuries are costing the Australian coal mining industry and its communities $410 Million a year. With injuries from sprains and strains accounting for about half of these costs, the industry needs to explore ....  read more

What Works Best at Improving Mine Worker Safety and Why Does it Work

This research project was designed to provide a framework for the evaluation of the effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness of safety programs and initiatives at all levels in the coal mining industry and to identify the key factors affecting the success of programs. This project was ....  read more