Role of Trans-Disciplinary Translational Industry Oriented Research for Improvement of Safety in Mining

Abstract

This paper presents overview of a few innovations by the author as scientist of CSIR-CIMFR, NIRM-Ministry of Mines, and Professor of NIT Rourkela through various industry oriented trans-disciplinary research activates over 37 years to improve safety in mines. Various innovative attempts made including application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) through more than 130 industry/Ministry sponsored projects for development of new concepts, designs and implementation in the field of opencast and underground mines in India. Mining evolves the cycle of stages which is started from exploration continuing through production and ends with closure of the mine facing lots of risk, hazards to environment and mankind. So minimizing the riskiness of the job and hazards technological innovations are coming forward in the mining industry. Renewal of the innovations is driven by the growth of the demands of the minerals with respect to communities and the environment. Adopting the technological innovations like geophysical methods for exploration of minerals, global positioning system, geographical information system, 3-D models using software etc makes the mining process more productive and reliable. So technological innovations shape the future. Attempts made on development and experimental trials of innovative systems for the first time in India for online-real-time slope stability monitoring with TDR, WSN, IoT, LoRa, Cloud/Fog computing etc for opencast mines is also presented with emphasize on urgent need of Trans-Disciplinary Translational industry oriented Research and Academics (TTIORA) for improving safety in mines, including fatigue monitoring.