One Hundred Years of Federal Mining Safety and Health Research

Generic Center for Mine Systems Design and Ground Control, led by Virginia Tech. Funding
for the Mineral Institutes program and the GMTCs continued until the closure of the Bureau in
1996.
5.6 USBM Accomplishments in Mining Research
Many USBM research and accomplishments in mining safety occurred in the last 25 years of its
history, between the passage of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 and up
until the Bureau was terminated by Congressional action in 1996. During those years, mining
health and safety research was divided into the following subprogram areas:
• Health research: respirable dust, noise, radiation, and diesel emission control.
• Safety research: ground control, human factors, industrial safety, and disaster prevention.
Three of the largest subprograms were respirable dust, ground control, and disaster prevention.
A few of the most significant accomplishments of Bureau research after the 1969 Coal Act will
be described next in more detail [USBM 1993].
5.6.1 Respirable Dust
The Bureau helped develop several devices for measurement of airborne dusts in mines. One of
these, the RAM-1 light-scattering dust monitor, was developed under contract by GCA
Corporation for the Bureau in 1978. This instrument was used by Bureau engineers and others to
evaluate the effectiveness of new dust control techniques in mines, offering the major
improvement of continuous readings of dust concentrations in real-time. GCA later designed a
smaller passive dust monitor for the Bureau, called the MINIRAM, which became commercially
available and has been used extensively. The Bureau and NIOSH also jointly funded a contract
with GCA for a device called the Fibrous Aerosol Monitor to measure the airborne concentration
of fibrous aerosols such as asbestos.
In the 1970s, the Bureau did major research on dust scrubber systems for coal mines, helping to
develop a flooded-bed scrubber that was more than 95 percent efficient in removing respirable
dust from mine air. Flooded-bed scrubbers are now used on most continuous mining machines
in underground coal mines in the U.S.
Much of the Bureau’s dust control research in the 1970s and 1980s was aimed at controlling dust
on longwall coal mine faces, as this was the type of mining operation with the greatest difficulty
in maintaining compliance with the regulatory dust standards. One method developed for
longwall shearers was the “shearer-clearer” system, which oriented water sprays on the shearer
mining machine to entrain air and hold the dust-laden air near the coal face and away from the
machine operators, who could thus operate the machine in relatively clean intake air (see Figure
36). All longwall shearers in the U.S. now use such spray systems.
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