Improving Occupational Safety During Ore Mining Using Environmental Technologies

A potential solution to the relevant problem of improving the quality and safety of mining production during underground development of mainly solid metal-containing minerals, utilizing a technology of filling worked-out space with a hardening mixture based on enrichment tailings, has been investigated. Using widely adopted methods of generalization, analysis, modeling, experimentation, calculation, and engineering forecasting, the concept of reducing hazards for miners is detailed. As shown, the best indices of workers’ occupational safety and completeness of subsurface use are ensured by filling worked-out space with hardening mixtures. A scheme to use recycling tailings, a safety criterion, and a model to determine the efficiency of recommended technologies have been advised. It has been demonstrated that the new technology implements the environmental principles of safe metal mining. The conditions of hazard reduction for workers facilitate, inter alia, the ore quality. The problem of hardening mixture component extraction is addressed by recycling of own wastes. The connection between injury rates and the location of deposits in conditions of a mountainous landscape has been determined. It has been identified that the density of artificial massif depends less on the angle of incidence and the width of cleaning space than on the height of the filling massif. A scheme and algorithm for mining production waste recycling have been proposed. The technology integration efficiency criterion has been developed in the form of discounted profits. A model of measures to reduce the hazards of mining operations is proposed. It has been proven that the safety of miners is feasibly increased due to the filling of voids with hardening mixtures that implement a model whose target function is the discounted profit from the implementation of resource-saving principles when developing ore deposits using the underground method.