ismsse-review of early warning system of mine safety in china

Procedia Engineering 26 (2011) 2287 – 2293

1877-7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.11.2436

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Procedia Engineering

Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000

www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

First International Symposium on Mine Safety Science and Engineering

ISMSSE-Review of early warning system of mine safety

in ChinaDai Weia,ba

aSchool of Resources & Safety Engineering, Central South University, #932 South Lushan Road,Changsha City, 410083, P.R.China

*, Chen Jianhong a

bAudit administration of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, #1 South Nanhu Road, Wuhan City, 430073, P.R.China

Abstract

Mine safety factors are more complex than that of the other sectors, and the accident probability is far higher than other industries. In this paper, various methods and main principles of early warning system of mine safety are introduced. After viewing the literature concerning mine safety, an elaborate study has been made which is concerned with these methods in their fields of application, advantages and disadvantages, and the direction of development.Furthermore, the main research problems in the field of early waining system of mine safetyare summarized and the future rresearch direction is proposed finally.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of China Academy of Safety Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology(Beijing), McGill University and University of Wollongong

Keywords: Mine safety; Early warning system; Index system; Monitoring

1. Introduction

There are many definitions of an Early Waring System (EWS) that are used to guide the actions of individuals, groups, and governments. The formal UN definition is as follows: "The provision of timely and effective information, through identifying institutions, that allow individuals exposed to a hazard to take action to avoid or reduce their risk and prepare for effective response" (ISDR, 2003). However, a more accurate and broader definition would be: “An EWS is a social process for generating maximally accurate information about possible future harm and for ensuring that this information reaches the people

* Dai Wei. Tel.: 86-027-88386972; fax: 86-027-88386717.E-mail [email protected].

2288 Dai Wei and Chen Jianhong / Procedia Engineering 26 (2011) 2287 – 22932 Dai Wei et al/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000

threatened by this harm, as well as others disposed to protect them from the harm." Much discussion revolved around the necessity of an early warning to refer to harm. Nomenclature

EWS Early waning system

EWSMS Early waning system of mine safety

However, to make an in-depth understanding of EWS, several points need to be clarified, there are: how early is early (this relates to the timing of the warning)? What constitutes a warning (monitoring, trend extrapolation, monitoring, and prediction, forecast)? What is meant by a system (formal, informal; quantitative, qualitative or anecdotal)? What are to be its official functions? What else might it do, besides monitor the environment and warn society of harm (educate, prepare societal responses)? What are the levels of warning (outlook, watch, warning, and alert)? Colors are sometimes used to identify the level of warning, as in the US terror warning system of its Department of Homeland Security. However, the color red, for example, may mean danger in one culture but may mean the opposite in another.

Most people probably envision an early warning system as including a formal bureaucratic structure, including organizational charts showing who reports to whom. However, in many societies there are patterns of human interactions not taking place within a building or a ministry that qualify as EWSs, especially in traditional cultures and groups that have had to depend on themselves for their own well being or that have learned over time, through generations, how to cope with certain hazards.

EWSs are needed for all kinds of changes in human activities and in ecological processes and for just about any change anywhere that is of interest to someone. Searching on the Internet for "early warning systems" brings up innumerable activities for which they are used. Early warning systems are part of a country's capacity to react to a perceived threat, in order to adapt to, mitigate or prevent harm.

Currenty, in China, the domestic relevant studies on Early waning system of mine safety (EWSMS) are not systematic enough compared with foreign rearch, and can not fully adapt to the current situation of safe development in mines.

2. Research overview of EWS

Originally, the research of EWS is derived from economic research, and later extended to the fields offood security, energy security and others. China’s research of EWS Began in the eighties of the 20th century and in addition to early warning of economics, it is also used in many other fields gradually.

Environmental security is a new concept crossing the field of environment and safety science, and a new field of science developed during the past decades, which is also known as ecological security orgreen safety. With the industrialization of production and the growing scale of consumption,environmental security extends from the initial field of reflecting the labor and other production technologies to the further area of the human life environment and ecological environment. Few scholars in China have conducted research on environmental security since the eighties of the 20th century.Howerer, those studies were mainly focused on the field of macro environment, instead of the field of mining environment as the representative of the production environment research. Moreover, the studies on environmental safety in China are mostly just started and mostly academic research, in which some major studies include: Wang Limao et al (2009) has selected 14 indicators from five main factors of resource security thus established an evaluation index system, and made an assessment of China’spetroleum and food security by using the index system based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process method [1~3]. Guo Xiaozhe and Duan Zhaofang have proposed a special monitoring system that covers the factors of mutation, efficiency, supply and demand, environmental protection, efficiency and petroleum

2289Dai Wei and Chen Jianhong / Procedia Engineering 26 (2011) 2287 – 2293Dai Wei et al/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 3

security [4].Chen Jianhong et al (2006) have developedt theories and experimental research on the platform of safety simulation in mines. Meanwhile, they aimed to current situation of mine safety production in China and designed techno-plan which adopts visualization, integration, network technology to develop the simulation platform of mine safety [5]. Zhao proposed the index system of EWS of coal economy [6]. Chi and Li analyzed the factors that affect energy security, summed up the elements affecting energy, security, politics, economic, transportation, military and sustainable development. After having consulted foreign theory of sustainable coordinated development, theysuggested 35 indicators classified into three groups, pressure indicators, state indicators and response indicators, and finally established the index system for measuring energy security [7]. Wang and Chen proposed the design principles and basic framework of both the four subsystems and index system of EWS [8]. Li et al porposed three major components of the framwork of EWS on safety, there aretechnical level, information level and user level, and pointed out that the key issues of EWS are building index system, selection of early warning model and determination of the safety threshold [9]. Overall, there is no complete EWS of mine safetywhich could provide a comprehensive evaluation on the special operating environment (such as mine).

3. Principles and methods of EWS

EWS consists of several parts including the selection and identification of indicators, methods of early warning, determination of safety threshold, and alarm system. Among the present studies in China, Professor She Lian of Wuhan University of Technology first proposed early warning management theory of enterprise which was applied to the field of traffic safety later and led to a EWS of traffic hazard [10].Gong elavorated the concept and contents of safety crisis warning from the perspective of risk management [11]. Nicholas J. Bahr discussed how to implement a cost-effective safety management program, and the best system safety techniques from a range of different industries, with examples. Healso demonstrated how to set up data management systems and how to set up an accident investigation board, and carry out risk assessment and risk evaluation [12]. Xiao Renxin constructed a safety warning information platform of mine and discussed EWS of colliery safety in his dissertation after studying the information model of gas accident prediction. Geng Dianming has developed EWS for colliery safety management based on the accident causation models of colliery safety [13], which can be shown as follows:

Security Status

Hazard detection

Hazard analysis

Warning and assessment

Warning decision

Accident

EWS of safety

Warning

AnalysisCorrect

Feedforward

Feedback

Feedback

Error


Fig.1. Management of EWS of Colliery Safety

Currently, there are mainly trree methods of EWS, namely, index warning, statistical warning, and model prediction. The index warning method evaluates the status of objects by calculating the composite index, which is mainly used in the macroeconomic field, such as prosperity index method. Statisticalwarning mainly searches the fluctuation of the objects by statistical methods, such as multiple discriminant analysis and logistic regression analysis. Model prediction evaluates the state of the objects by establishing mathematical models, which is divided into linear and nonlinear models and applicable to the complicated case with more monitoring points. The specific methods of EWS include: Logisic Regression Analysis, Multivariate Discriminant Analysis, evaluation with Artificial Neural Netwok (ANN), Intelligent Early Waring Support System (IEWSS), Failure Tree Method Analysis (FCTA), prosperity index method, ARCH warning method, classification based on probability, sequential criterion, ARMA warning method, etc.

Overall, the development of early warning methods in China is synchronized with that from abroad. However, the in-depth study of the application of different methods is still not enough.

4. Research progress of EWSMS

The foreign researchers have done a lot of work at the early warning indicatos. Virginia Dale et al proposed the five steps of establishing index system, according to which Lei Ming established the index system of safety warning including 5 sub-blocks and 27 indicators [14]. A few safety monitoring systems such as CMM-20 have been introduced to China since the mid-eighties of the 20th century. Subsequently, KJ1, KJ4 and other systems were doveloped in the country. Some experts have developed the EWS that specifically for the colliery. Lu designed the evaluation system of colliery safety, which involves an overall target, 7 indicators of grade Ⅰ, 36 indicators of gradeⅡ, 177 ndicators of grade Ⅲ and covers over 500 inspection points [15] (see in Table 1).

Table1. Index system of colliery safety

Indicators of grade Ⅰ Indicators of gradeⅡ

Safety indicators of coal mining（C1）

Technology managementUpper and down crossheading & Security exit

Roof management

Working surface blasting

Electromechanical equipment

Tunneling safety indicators（C2）

Technology management

General project

Shed supportBolting and shotcreting

Tunneling equipment

Laneway maintenance

Excavating blasting

Electrical safety （C3）

Main equipment of mine hoisting

Power supply systemElectrical equipment and its maintenance

Lighting and communications

Air Compressors

Transportation safety indicators（C4） Roadway transport


Locomotive haulage

Belt conveyor haulage

Machinery transport for workers within the roadway

Ventilation safety indicators（C5）

Ventilation system

Local ventilation

Gas management

Safety monitoringCoal dust control

Ventilation facilities

Fire prevention and extinguishing

Water-proofl indicators（C6）

Technology management

Surface water-proof

Water-proof within the roadway

Safety management indicators（C7）

Security system

Drawings

Security measures

Safety training

Site management

Each index should be given the weight after the index system was established. At present, the main approach for distributing weighted coefficient is Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which has been provided with quite mature softwares on the market. Some researchers have studied the data quality of mining safety. Liu divided the data quality into 4 categories with 15 dimensions and expanded the methods of assessment of data quality proposed by Leo L. Pipino, and finally established the quality evaluation model of work safety data source of coal mines, which will provide references for examing the quality of data of EWSMS [16].

Liu have designed the EWS of metal mine safety and formed the design process system as follows [17]:

Blasting subsystem

Subsystem of mining with scraper

Operation subsystem of medium-length hole

Subsystem of roof and secondary crushing

Information of mining safety

Analysis of system security risk

Safety

Early warningEstablishing rules of safety assessment and early warning

Store

Danger

Basic safety evaluation information on personnel, equipment, environment in database

Generate information of evaluation results and related security measures


Fig.2. Flow chart of EWS of metal mine safety

5. Conclusion

Despite many relevant researches, the study of EWSMS is limited to simple descriptions and has not formed a unified and specific methodology. The research of EWSMS is a new field of safety management study and there are many problems to be solved, inclding (but not limited to): • Despite a lot of hazard assessment methods, it still needs further study on evaluation method to

achieve “general” and “standardizaton” requirements according to the defferent conditions of each mine.

• Despite the establishment of evaluation index system, it still lacks of data supporting and validation. In order to make assessment results more accurately, a comprehensive collection of safety evaluation indicators is greatly needed in the process of safety evaluation of a certain case.

• The current research mainly focused on the treatment methods of indicators or the models of early warning; however the study of early warning theory is inadequate.

• Since the division of early warning levels (or safety threshold) lacks of scientific basis, the comprehensive evaluation of indicators system and the definition of critical point of each index have yet to be further studied.

• To establish a perfect EWSMS, the expert system of EWS is of great importance, which is accompanied by some advanced technical methods, such as artificial intelligence, knowledge engineering, artifical neural networks, etc.

Acknowledgements

The second author would like to thank the School of Resources and Safety Engineering of Central South University. The first author would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.

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ismsse-review of early warning system of mine safety in china

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