Innovative Application of T-Ray Imaging Unit for Crack Detection and Mine Safety – An Appraisal for Experimental Trial

Abstract

Although extensive instrumentation for strata monitoring has been carried out to know the support-strata response at various mines, still some more innovative techniques are required for identification of deformation of rock, ground movements, cracks etc in mines for taking proper precautions and improving safety measures. Although efforts are being made in many coal mining areas to establish strata management cell as per recommendations of the 10th National Conference of Safety in Mines held at New Delhi 26-27th Nov, 2007, further modifications are required for its proper organization with suitable instrumentation. This paper presents overview of problems of mining in India and the need of innovative applications of trans-disciplinary research for geotechnical investigations for improved safety. Instrumentation required for better understanding of strata behaviour around underground opening is presented. Recent studies also describes the integration of TDR directly with Arduino boards and XBee modules for real-time transmission of slope monitoring data as a part of Ministry of Mines, Government of India (GOI) sponsored project. In view of the significant level of accidents due to roof/side falls, slope failures in Indian mines, emphasis is made on the recent trends in geotechnical instrumentation including innovative application of T-ray unit for crack detection for better understanding of strata behaviour in underground and opencast mines. Experimental trials in the laboratory and mining field are required to implement solid-state T-Ray source and detector array in the wideband (75 GHz to 0.75 THz) tunable frequency range network along with Network analyzer and thermal spectrum analysis algorithm based on the imaging data for warning of mining accidents. The novelty of the project is that for the first time solid-state T-Ray source and detector array based imaging tool will be used for crack identification in Mines (coal / metallic sample) by studying /mapping variation of dielectric properties and thermograph images at a time.