Personal gravimetric dust sampling and risk assessment.

Abstract

The origin of the project SIMGAP project GAP046, were rooted in the industry’s need to establish the viability of such a simplification of sampling procedures. Extensive investigations were conducted at three underground sites and one surface installation. The first underground site was a highly mechanized, shallow mine, the second site was a shallow mine with conventional mini-longwalls and the third site was a deep mechanized mine. The fourth site was an assay and sample preparation laboratory. At all the sampling sites extremely large variation in dust concentrations were measured on a day to day and shift basis. Correlation of dust concentrations between personal and stationary samples was very poor as was the correlation between quartz fractions. In addition there was very poor correlation between personal samples in the same area during the same shaft. Also, the correlation between dust and quartz was found to be poor. Thus, the possibility of replacing personal sample with representative, stationary samples could not be justified nor recommended.