Some Observations on Particulates Collected in Diesel and Non-Diesel Underground Coal Mines

"This paper outlines the results obtained when sampling twenty underground coal mine sections, each in a different mine. The sampling effort was oriented toward a detailed characterization of coal mine dusts and thus eight-stage Anderson Model 298 impactors were used as the primary collection instrument. This instrument allowed a rather detailed size distribution for each of the particulates sampled. Because four of the mines used diesel outby equipment and/or diesel shuttle cars at the face, it is possible to make some comparisons on the particulate distributions in diesel versus non-diesel mines.One of the more interesting results is the pattern that exists in mines that contain only diesels used for outby utility haulage. Particulate in these mines seem to be consistently heavy in the fine size ranges, perhaps being of significant concern to the industry. While no definite conclusions can be achieved from the limited data collected in this study, the data indicates that more detaile~ study of particulates in diesel mines is needed so that some idea of the particulate loadings in diesel mines can be achieved."