Geoff Brown, Occupational Health Advisor, Redpath Australia
Dr Jacinta Buchbach, Head Respect at Work, Leadership Development, In Safe Hands.
Educators in Safety: Respect at Work
Dr Jacinta Buchbach
In Safe Hands Educators in Safety: Respect At Work
Creswick Bulger
Senior Inspector of Mines, Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy
This paper discusses critical controls – those which can prevent fatal and catastrophic events from occurring in Queensland surface coal mines. To understand what the critical controls are we have to identify all fatal hazards in surface coal mines.
Analysis of all fatalities that have occurred in Queensland coal mines since 1969, show hazards causing the majority of fatalities in surface mines are distinctly different to those causing the majority of fatalities in underground mines. During this 50 year period there have been 132 fatalities in Queensland coal mines, 94 in underground and 38 in surface mines.
A breakdown shows 86% of fatalities in underground mines were caused by principal hazards. In surface mines only 24% of fatalities were caused by principal hazards. This means for surface mines the majority of critical controls relate to a number of fatal hazards which are not principal hazards.
Based on that analysis the Queensland coal mine inspectorate has sought information from surface coal mine companies relating to the fatal hazards and critical controls identified within their risk identification systems. This information will be developed into audit and inspection guidelines which the inspectorate will apply when carrying out inspections and audits at surface coal mines.
Prof Robin Burgess-Limerick – Professor of Human Factors, The University of Queensland
ABSTRACT
Operators of earth-moving equipment at surface mines are exposed to whole-body vibration. Prolonged exposure to high amplitude whole-body vibration accumulates to cause adverse health effects, particularly back disorders. The potential for instantaneous high impact loading also exists and these high impacts (jolts and jars) experienced by earth-moving equipment operators may cause acute injury. ACARP project C23022 successfully demonstrated the use of an iOS application (WBV) as a cost-effective means of measuring whole-body vibration.
An extension of this work is underway which enables continuous communication of the accelerations to which equipment operators are exposed to a central server to facilitate the management of both whole-body vibration and instantaneous impacts. The server software will undertake further analysis and provide an alert in the event that a high amplitude impact on the operator is detected, or when the daily vibration dose approaches the upper limit of the ISO2631.1 Health Guidance Caution Zone. The vibration data will also be combined with GPS data to allow further analysis of the sources of elevated whole-body vibration levels and high impact incidents.
Robin Burgess-Limerick
The University of Queensland
Prof. Robin Burgess-Limerick – Professor of Human Factors, Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, The University of Queensland
ABSTRACT
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 systems. During ACARP project C24028, a range of information sources were reviewed including best practice guidelines from other industries. The consequences of different visual interfaces were examined when drivers were presented with potential collision scenarios via a modified haul-truck simulator (Figure 1). Additional information available in a Schematic proximity advisory visual interface was utilised by drivers to reduce collision risk and braking force and decrease travel time; although the effects were smaller in a subsequent experiment involving a smaller number of experienced truck drivers.
Design guidelines have been developed for haul-truck proximity advisory systems. Further work is underway in project C27005 in which a similar experimental paradigm is utilized to examine two of the issues identified as requiring further investigation: the relative benefits of proximity information based on distance only vs collision prediction information; and secondly, the relative benefits of auditory tones vs speech.
Dan Burman,
Dropsafe/Teksal Safety
Simon Burnett, Development Mechanical Coordinator, AngloAmerican – Grasstree Mine
Simon Burnett – Development Mechanical Coordinator, Anglo American
Steven Henderson – Development Mechanical Trade Supervisor, Anglo American