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Article history: This paper presents the numerical approach to the safety and ergonomics issues regarding
Received 8 September 2015 the biomechanics of the mining machine operator. Based on actual accidents, the authors
Accepted 24 February 2016 analyzed the current requirements for protective structures in regard to operator safety
Available online 31 March 2016 aspects. The study found that the current type-approval tests do not examine phenomena
related to typical accidents in underground mines, such as rock bursts resulting in thill
Keywords: uplift, lateral rock tosses, or cover caving. In many cases it may result in severe or fatal
Biomechanical modelling injuries of the mining machine operators. Thus, the authors incorporate a precise human
Numerical simulations model into operator safety tests and conducted numerical simulations by the use of the
FAA Hybrid III Dummy coupled Finite Element and MulitBody codes. To mitigate the injuries, the state-of-the-art
Energy absorption seat absorber was implemented underneath a typical operator's seat. The device was
Accident reconstruction designed to dissipate the kinetic energy during the process of rapid oor uplift and
immediate velocity change from the cab to gallery roof impact. In order to compare the
energy-dissipating capabilities of the absorber two approaches were selected for the same
boundary conditions: a standard seat and seat with absorber mounted in the cab during the
impact. The cab initial velocity was the main variable during the simulations. Finally, the
injury criteria for the standard seat and the new approach with the energy-absorbing device
were collated and contrasted.
# 2016 Politechnika Wrocawska. Published by Elsevier Sp. z o.o. All rights reserved.
Fig. 2 The operator's cab from outside (left) and inside (right) after the accident in KGHM Rudna.
prevailing in underground mines is necessary. Such analysis of side of the cab roof (Fig. 2). Due to the condentiality of the
the phenomena occurring inside the rock mass, causing post-mortem examination of the operator, the authors, till
different types of catastrophic events, will contribute to now, have received the following statement about the cause
operator safety enhancement. The denition of proper bound- and manner of death. It is reported that the operator suffered
ary conditions and adequate dynamic tests of various accident lethal cervical spine injury [8] due to ruptured vertebral body,
situations should be implemented. which harmed and transected the spinal cord. What is
The current norms and standards which encompass heavy signicant is that, even in the face of the death of the operator,
equipment safety are included in the Machinery Directive the cab was still considered safe after the accident as
2006/42/EC. The document states that every self-propelled measured by the residual deection sag, according to the
mining machine destined to work in an underground mine present regulations [9].
needs to full requirements of the Roll-Over Protective Furthermore, instead of using a biodelic human dummy
Structures (ROPS) and Falling-Objects Protective Structures model, the obligatory examinations utilize the Deection-
(FOPS) procedures [5]. Protective structures of the machines Limiting Volume (DLV), which roughly depicts an approximate
working underground are subjected to the same examinations living space of a large, seated male operator wearing normal
of operator safety as civil engineering machinery [6,7]. clothing and a protective helmet (Fig. 3). The verication tests
However, conditions and accident situations prevailing in
the underground mines are signicantly different than those
in the eld of civil engineering or even opencast mining. There
are no special requirements for the underground mining
machines. However, there are some phenomena that occur
only in this specic environment, i.e. inside the rock mass,
caused by rock bursts, such as thill uplift (lifting the oor layers
due to the pressure inside the rock mass), cover caving etc.
which may result in severe or even fatal operator injuries. The
accident which occurred in the copper mine KGHM Rudna in
2010 clearly supports this statement.
The rock burst with released seismic energy rate equaled to
4.1 107 J, caused the oor heave and subsequent rock falls
and ejections. This eventuated in two miner deaths and three
other seriously injured. One of the fatalities, which circum-
stances are further described in this paper, was the self-
propelled underground loader operator (Fig. 1).
The machine was thrown upwards due to the thill uplift
and, after breaking the connection between the operator cab
and machine, the protective structure struck against the roof. Fig. 3 The deflection-limiting volume
The loads acting on the operator caused rapid vertical motion (H T W T D = 1510 mm T 515 mm T 870 mm) current
of the operator's body which resulted in his striking the bottom ergonomics and safety standard.
archives of civil and mechanical engineering 16 (2016) 503512 505
are considered positive provided DLV remains intact [10]. The 2.2. Finite element cabin model
norms do not take into consideration either forces acting on
the human body during the accident situation or any injury The operator protective structures used in the simulations are
biomechanics. the products of Mine Master, a company specialized in the
Thus, there is an urgent need to implement a precise underground mining equipment [17,18]. The cabs were already
human model into the examination of the safety of the examined [19,20] for the operator safety in compliance with
underground mining machine operators. The application of the current regulations and met imposed requirements. The
the mentioned solutions may signicantly improve their protective structure geometrical Computer-aided Design
safety [6,11]. The test will considerably better cover the actual (CAD) and Finite Element (FE) models were created in
conditions prevailing in the specic underground mine accordance with the technical documentation provided by
environment. The examination will also indicate some typical Mine Master.
injuries which machine operator sustain during an accident.
2.3. Seat measurements
Fig. 4 Measurements of the seat mounting: (a) examination on the universal testing machine and (b) stiffness of the
mounting spring.
2.5. Coupling
Fig. 7 Numerical models of the analyzed operator protective structures: (a) standard seat and (b) seat with absorber.
Therefore, embedding the MADYMO FAA HIII dummy into LS- gallery. Fig. 8 presents the comparison of two simulations of
DYNA FE environment (Fig. 7) was considered a suitable the oor uplift for the FM 2.3 protective structure. The Z-
solution. displacement magnitude [mm] of the dummy restrained with
lap seat belt is plotted for the model without the seat absorber
2.6. Loading and boundary conditions and contrasted with the seat equipped with the new energy-
absorbing device. For the sake of better visualization of the
The denition of the boundary conditions for the simulations accident phases the device was magnied in the gure.
was one of the major issues. The physical data concerning After the rst phase of the oor uplift (20 ms), the inertia of
phenomena occurring inside the rock mass in the under- the operator and the seat caused the compression of the seat's
ground mines are relatively difcult to obtain. However, after mounting system modelled by nonlinear springs. Hence, the
accident analyses, basing on the recorded mine's data, the relative vertical displacement (Z axis) of the dummy's CG was
authors managed to estimate the velocity of the operator's cab negligibly small (approximately 8 mm) for both constructions.
after the thill heave as increasing from 0 to 10 m/s in 30 ms (i.e. During the second phase (40 ms) the mounting system is fully
30 g) and stopping from 10 m/s in 5 ms, causing the cab compressed (compare Fig. 4) and this the moment when the
acceleration of 200 g during the cab to gallery roof impact. To seat absorber starts to dissipate the kinetic energy through its
validate the velocity curve run, the average acceleration of the compression. The CG of the dummy was vertically displaced
cab after the thill uplift and distance between the top surface by 163 mm for the standard system and 133 mm for the seat
of the cab and the bottom surface of the gallery roof were also with absorber. As the structural capability of the absorber for
taken into consideration. The gathered boundary condition further compression is intentionally limited, to protect the
data facilitated the numerical calculations. operator's lower limbs, the device is engineered to also reduce
It must be noted, that the initial velocity of 10 m/s causing the acceleration by its controlled extension. The process of
the initial acceleration of the cab of 30 g is the maximal elongation of the middle steel plates occurs at 60 ms after the
magnitude which have been recorded in the considered impact. The double C design of the middle plates exhibits
underground mines. Thus, the authors also analyzed lower elasto-plastic deformation which enable the energy absorp-
velocity magnitudes to obtain a clear overview of operator tion in a controlled mater, consequently decelerating the inert
biomechanical injuries during some potential accidents. For operator and seat. Thus, the relative vertical operator's CG
this purpose, the initial velocity was gradually raised from 4 m/ displacement is 628 mm i.e. 170 mm more than for the
s up to maximal 10 m/s in 1 m/s increments. To compare the standard seat. This is a desirable feature of the absorber, when
energy-dissipating capabilities of the absorber, two we consider the lack of the load limiter in the lap seat belt.
approaches were selected for the same boundary conditions: Using the precise MADYMO dummy allowed the authors to
a standard seat and seat with absorber mounted in the cab. determine whether the loads such as acceleration acting on
the human body during the accident situation may be life-
threatening or even fatal. The injury criteria taken into
3. Results and discussion consideration during analysis are forces measured in the
lumbar spine and neck and acceleration acting on head of the
3.1. Numerical simulations machine operator [35].
The simulations of the oor uplift in the underground mine 3.2. Biomechanical criteria
after the rock burst were conducted for operator protective
structure FM 2.3. The seismic energy released from the rock The lumbar spine force is a maximum force measured
mass resulted in a rapid upwards machine ejection. After- between lumbar and pelvic elements of the FAA HIII. The
wards, the cab with operator struck the roof of the mine limit value of this criterion correspond to 20% possibility of
508 archives of civil and mechanical engineering 16 (2016) 503512
Fig. 8 Simulations of the floor uplift for the FM 2.3 protective structure (Z-displacement magnitude [mm] of the dummy) with
the initial velocity of 10 m/s: left without the seat absorber; right with the seat absorber (magnified for better
visualization).
archives of civil and mechanical engineering 16 (2016) 503512 509
Fig. 9 Force measured in the upper neck (upper row) and lumbar spine (lower row) of the dummy during the accident
simulations: standard seat (left column) vs. seat with absorber (right column).
medium to severe injury at the level of 2+ Abbreviated Injury a 55% probability of a serious (AIS 3) injury and a 90%
Scale (AIS) [36] and it is 10 kN for a 50th percentile male. Head probability of a moderate (AIS 2) head injury, to an average
Injury Criterion (HIC) is a measure of the head injury possibility adult [37]. The head acceleration was measured in the centre of
during the accident situation. The limit HIC value1000 is gravity of the FAA HIII head model. The limit values of the used
equivalent to an 18% probability of a severe (AIS 4) head injury, criteria are based on the military air transport requirements.
Fig. 10 Comparison of the maximal force measured in neck (upper row) and lumbar spine (lower row) of the dummy during
the accident simulations: tension (left column) vs. compression state (right column).
510 archives of civil and mechanical engineering 16 (2016) 503512
Fig. 11 Head acceleration of the dummy (upper row) for seat without absorber (left) vs. seat with absorber (right) and HIC
comparison (lower row).
Force in the neck was measured in its upper part along the compression stage. Maximal values of the criteria obtained
vertical direction and limit value for this criterion is 4.5 kN. from the simulations with and without seat absorber were
The values of the criteria obtained from the simulation are compared in the following gures. The capabilities of the
presented on the charts in Figs. 811. The simulations for the energy-absorption of the designed device can be seen
standard seat and seat with mounted absorber were con- especially in the tension stage.
ducted. The test was divided into 2 stages during the analysis
of results: compression and tension. During the compression 3.3. Results comparison and limitations
stage the operator is pressed into the seat while rapid upwards
machine ejection. This stage last from 20 to 6070 ms Table 1 presents the maximal values obtained during the
irrespectively of the analyzed initial velocity. Until 20 ms, simulations and the comparison between the results achieved
the operator do not experience any injuries due to the stiffness from the seat with absorber and standard seat. It may be seen
of the springs acting in the seat mounting. The second stage is that the effects of the absorber in tension stage are signicant.
the tension, when the machine impacts the roof of the mine However, for the compression stage the results are not
gallery. The operator is thrown upwards and the fastened seat satisfactory.
belt keeps him on the seat. This stage starts from 7080 ms to The designed absorber enabled meeting the required
120 ms of the simulation. The values of the injuries obtained in criteria limits for the velocities up to 9 m/s. In contrast, for
this stage are twice as high as the results achieved from the the standard seat, the criteria are met up to 6 m/s. Above all,
Table 1 Peak values of biomechanical criteria for the standard seat and seat with absorber for different cab velocities of the
impact.
V [m/s] Standard seat Seat with absorber
HIC Force in lumbar Force in upper HIC Force in lumbar Force in upper
spine [kN] neck [kN] spine [kN] neck [kN]
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