No abstract

The South African Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA) requires the mine surveyor to inform the manager of all workings within 100 metres of other workings, abandoned areas and hazardous accumulations of water or gas. The main purpose of this requirement is to ensure that all employees are aware and can take all the necessary precautions against un-planned breakthroughs, falls of ground and subsidence. In the case where mines are mining through abandoned workings in order to remove remnant pillars and previously unmined reserves, the potential for subsidence and equipment falling into excavated areas become a reality. A single incident where a machine falls into a collapsed working can amount to in excess of R1 million per incident, excluding the risk of loss of life or serious injury. An unplanned collapse of workings in the specific case study can also lead to sufficient air flow into the old underground to cause spontaneous combustion of the remaining pillars. Although systems for navigation of drill rigs exist the cost to deploy a similar unit to all vehicles in the mining area is prohibitive. A low-cost system that can navigate a vehicle and indicate to the operator what the subsurface features look like in the direct surroundings of the vehicle was developed using off-the-shelf technologies. This paper discusses the process of developing a low-cost navigation system towards a real time information management system for a mining operation. Benefits from this system may be applied in underground navigation and guiding rescue services in the search of illegal miners in abandoned mines.

It is estimated that corrosion causes around R260 Billion of damage to infrastructure and equipment in the South African industry annually. Corrosion evaluation and protection in the marine environment is well established. In the mining industry the field of corrosion evaluation is not as well established as it could be. The evaluation and measurement of corrosion rates and physical deterioration of structures through electrochemical measurement, visual inspection and non-destructive test method measuring techniques are well established. The use of sonar (ultrasonic) and laser scanning has been investigated. Laser scanning technology has improved exponentially over the past years and terrestrial and hand-held units are now smaller, more manageable and affordable to the surveyor. Conventional laser scanners are able to measure to an accuracy of millimeters and generate a point cloud of 1million points per second in some cases. Latest developments in laser scanning include multi-spectral analysis and Red-Green-Blue (RGB) intensity values for each point. Point clouds of data can now be imported into a CAD package and compared to design specifications. In the case where "as-built" specifications differ for the initial design, laser scanning allows the engineer the opportunity to compare and quantify in minute detail the differences between the final structure and the original design. This paper discusses a test during which a corroded and "fouled" pipe was scanned under laboratory conditions using two types of conventional scanners. A field test was performed on two marine vessels to determine the feasibility of laser scanning to complement standard corrosion measuring methods. The application of laser scanning in this field may provide a valuable tool in the detection, measurement and analysis of corrosion in structures.

The accuracy of all underground surveying is regulated by the standards described in the

The first formalised training for Mining Engineers and Mine Surveyors offered in South