Underground                                       Underground

Health and safety, productivity and environment initiatives.

Open Cut                                          Open Cut

Safety, productivity and the right to operate are priorities for open cut mine research.

Coal Preparation                                  Coal Preparation

Maximising throughput and yield while minimising costs and emissions.

Technical Market Support                          Technical Market Support

Market acceptance and emphasising the advantages of Australian coals.

Mine Site Greenhouse Mitigation                   Mine Site Greenhouse Mitigation

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the production of coal.

Low Emission Coal Use                             Low Emission Coal Use

Step-change technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Mining and the Community                          Mining and the Community

The relationship between mines and the local community.

 

©2008 Australian Coal Association Research Program

Open Cut Mining Priorities

Improved Health & Safety

The industry is looking for direct or indirect improvements in health and safety across all mining operations. Areas of focus and interest for open cut mining are:

  • Personal back and joint damage. A number of improvements have been seen in the areas of seating, suspension and vehicle ride, but continued development and new approaches are required to further reduce injuries of this type.
  • Protection and removal of personnel from potentially hazardous situations such as working under highwalls and during loading of trucks where the use of remote control is of interest.
  • General improvement to the safety of mining and maintenance operations through novel procedural, operating, or equipment changes.
  • Manual handling aids or alternatives for ground engaging tool (GET) replacement.
  • The development of simple, applied and practical behavioural safety management tools/approaches tailored for application in the Australian coal industry. This applies equally to the coal processing and underground areas.

Increase The Productivity Of Mining Systems

A reduction in unit costs of production is a key driver for the industry. Some specific issues are:

  • Implementation of automation for production and other machines. Proposals will need to offer improvement in health and safety, decreased production costs and increased productivity.
  • Improved sensing to improve production and control.
  • Enhancements to major mining equipment to enable improved cycle times or improved utilisation.
  • Innovations in operating techniques.
  • Lower cost ways of fragmenting ground for optimum diggability and bucket filling.
  • Development of training tools to transfer the benefits of improved techniques to operators.
  • Development of innovative methods to improve coal recovery.
  • Geotech stability of very high spoil piles and highwalls.

Improvement In The Efficiency & Reliability Of Equipment & Services

The industry believes that working with OEMs is of significant value and would also welcome projects that are supported by, or integrate with, OEMs:

  • Reliability engineering.
  • The development of practical methods to understand and reduce the negative impact of operational practices.
  • Condition monitoring and its effective and useful integration.
  • Innovations that help mine operators improve tyre life.
  • Advances that help relate duty to work done across a range of equipment to define maintenance needs.
  • Improved methods for predicting catastrophic equipment failures.
  • Technologies that improve energy efficiency across the mine.

Improved Geological Definition Of Coal Deposits

For economic assessment reasons, it is essential that we have the best possible understanding and definition of the resources and reserves underpinning any mining operation.

  • Development of advanced techniques to process and interpret geophysical data and the further development of geophysical tools.
  • Development of techniques to better and more accurately determine the quality and quantity of the coal resource/reserve particularly in near surface to moderate depth targets.
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UndergroundOpen CutCoal PreparationTechnical Market SupportMine Site Greenhouse MitigationLow Emission Coal UseMining and the Community

Recently completed projects

Underground

C15019Geophysical Strata Ra...

The Geophysical Strata Rating (GSR) is a means of empirically ....

C15002Longwall Automation 2...

This report covers a nominal two-year extension to the Major Longwall ....

C14022Development of a Data...

The need for this project was identified in a previous ACARP project ....

Open Cut

C14042Specification of Over...

This project searched for links between overburden data obtained ....

C15034Development of ARD As...

The overall objective of the project was to develop a set of tests for ....

C16007Development of a Smar...

The objective of this project was is to design and develop a wireless ....

Coal Preparation

C16045Acoustic Emission Sof...

A commercial prototype Acoustic Emission (AE) analyser has been ....

C17044Investigation of Misp...

This report considers the reasons for the existence of low density ....

C16004Electrical Efficiency...

The report is intended to be used as a guide or a handbook by ....

Technical Market Support

C13068Alternative Method fo...

Traditional plasticity measurements for coal have a number of ....

C11017Coke: Its Constitutio...

Coke made in coke ovens from coal and used in iron blast furnaces is a ....

C14073QEMSCAN for Character...

QEMSCAN is an automated electron beam image analysis technique, ....

Mine Site Greenhouse Mitigation

C17055Estimation of Gas in ...

ACARP Project C15076 (Saghafi et al., 2008) presents a calculation ....

C15076Evaluating a Tier 3 M...

Fugitive emissions from open cut coal mines arise when coal and ....

C17006Spontaneous Combustio...

Open-cut coal mining produces large quantities of waste material that ....

Low Emission Coal Use

C15078Environmental Regulat...

ACARP provided a funding contribution to establish this ....

C17002An Integrated Roadmap...

Heavy investment into research and development of clean coal ....

C16008Review of HyperCoal, ...

This report describes the findings of a review of three potential ....

Mining and the Community

C13078Communication Strateg...

This ACARP project was designed to identify communication strategies ....

C13080Socio-economic Impact...

The broad aim of this project was to assist coal mining companies ....

C13081Age Related Changes i...

The ageing of the Australian workforce poses particular challenges to ....