Investigation of purging and airlock contamination of mobile refuge alternatives.
Authors
Bauer ER; Matty TJ; Thimons ED
Source
Pittsburgh, PA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2014-116, (RI 9694), 2014 Mar; :1-51
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Office of Mine Safety and Health Research (OMSHR) has conducted research to evaluate the effectiveness of purging of mine refuge alternatives (RAs). Two questions were addressed experimentally: (1) Does the current generation of mobile refuge alternatives meet the requirements of 30 CFR4 § 7.508 (c) (2) which requires RAs to be capable of purging the internal atmosphere from 400 ppm of carbon monoxide (CO) to 25 ppm? (2) What is the relationship between the concentration of noxious gases in the mine atmosphere external to the refuge alternative and the concentration that will be present inside the refuge alternative following entry of miners but prior to purging? The goal of the second question was to evaluate the appropriateness of the 400-ppm criterion, given that ambient post-accident mine concentrations of CO can be in the thousands of ppm. A tent-type and a rigid steel mobile refuge alternative were used to investigate the first question. Carbon monoxide (CO) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) were used as contaminant gases as part of this study, and the individual experiments were conducted with the purging area of the RA occupied by zero, one, or seven simulated (when CO was used) or live (when SF6 was used) occupants. To investigate the second question, the aforementioned RAs were used along with a third airlock constructed for and employed in the experiments. The volume and size of the entry door into the constructed airlock were roughly in the middle of the range of values for the rigid and tent-type RAs. The RAs and constructed airlock were placed in a large sealed reverberation room, and SF6 gas was released into the reverberation room as a surrogate for CO. Experiments were conducted to determine the gas concentrations inside the airlock after groups of test subjects (representing miners) had entered.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.