Comparative Analysis of Coal Miner’s Fatalities by Fuzzy Logic

Abstract

In this work, we employ the fuzzy logic technique to achieve and present, for the first time, a proper analysis of the actual intensity of the increase in the coal miners’ fatality rates in Pakistan from 2010 to 2018, compared with China and India, with an objective to minimize the impact of incidents on the miners’ fatalities. The average and yearwise fatality rates in Pakistan, compared with China and India, are used for the fuzzy logic technique in order to calculate the actual degree of flexibility for the surging fatalities. The findings show that both the average (2010-2018) and yearwise fatality rates in 2011, 2015, and 2018 are 2.44, 1.74, and 1.6, respectively. In the fuzzy logic technique, the variables whose membership function (µ) values are ≥ 1 represent the absolute truth. The membership function values for the years 2011, 2015, and 2018 are alarmingly high for the fatalities of coal miners. Similarly, except for 2014 and 2010, where 0 represents the absolute falseness, the results for the remaining years indicate high fatality rates with a flexibility (or small extent) of its corresponding membership function (µ) values such as 0.623, 0.739, 0.219, 0.173 and 0.115, and 0.714, 0.24, 0.01, 0.324 and 0.317 using the average and yearwise analysis, respectively, compared with China. Likewise, the fuzzy logic membership function (µ) values compared with India in the remaining years are 0.704, 0.795, 0.386, 0.159, 0.352 and 0.306, and 0.675, 0.795, 0.386, 0.186, 0.321 and 0.322, respectively. The proposed fuzzy logic analysis has been founded based on the theory of fuzzy sets to properly identify the miners’ fatalities, and also to suggest the implementation of appropriate recommendations to reduce the fatalities in the coal mines in Pakistan.