SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS IN HOT MINE ENVIRONMENT – THE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT INDICES

Abstract

The article presents the discussion and practical examples relating to the interpretation of the notion of safe working areas in hot environment based on various indices (American Effective Temperature (ATE), climate equivalent temperature (t zk ) and the Silesian temperature (TS)). The first, theoretical part includes an analysis of the allowable dry bulb temperatures in line with the threshold values for the specified indices in case of various relative humidity and airflow velocity values. Also, the variability of the studied allowable working areas was exhibited for hypothetical extreme cases (such as an airflow of 0 m/s or the relative humidity of φ = 0%) as well as for actual conditions registered in headings. The second part consisted in the analysis of the allowable full-time working conditions for two selected cases of driving roadways. The analysis was conducted for two indices applied in the first part and complemented with an appraisal considering the dry bulb temperature (t s ) and the wet kata thermometer units (K w ). It has been exhibited that while regulating the airflow and the dry bulb temperature in the heading, significant differences in the interpretations (ranges) of safe working areas occur depending on the index that is being used. The conducted works indicate that by applying air cooling in the heading (decreasing the psychrometric temperatures considering the thermodynamic process corresponding to sensible air cooling) or by increasing the airflow, the requirements of the microclimate indices are fulfilled in the following order: ATE, t zk , TS.