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Use of Machine Learning to detect dangerous level of coal mine methane concentrations duringunderground mining operations
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1  Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Pretoria
Academic Editor: Stefano Mariani

https://doi.org/10.3390/ECSA-12-26591 (registering DOI)
Abstract:

Underground coal mining is considered to be a highly dangerous activity and has been responsible for large amounts of accidents causing the death of many mine workers. One of the factors responsible for the fatal aspect of underground coal mining is the presence and accumulation of toxic gases during underground mining operations. This paper focused its investigation specifically on coal mine methane (CMM) which is released as a result of the extraction of coal and the disturbance inflicted to surrounding rocks’ formation during deep mining operations. Methane is considered a highly dangerous gas as it holds the capacity to cause explosions due to its high inflammable nature. It also can displace oxygen which eventually leads to asphyxiation. This research was based on the use of machine learning models to successfully predict dangerous concentrations of methane over the authorized threshold. Those predictions were made from a dataset containing information on the temperature, airflow, humidity, pressure and methane concentration at an underground coal mine. The temperature, airflow, humidity and pressure measurements were recorded by a series of sensors namely anemometers and component sensors THP2/93. Three machine learning classification models were implemented and compared with the objective towards finding the best model to predict and detect dangerous level of coal mine methane. The models that were investigated include: Naïve-Bayes, logistic regression and artificial neural networks (ANN). The paper concluded with an engineering decision matrix that illustrated the precision of these models towards predicting and detecting dangerous level of methane concentration in underground mines. Furthermore, recommendations for capacity improvement towards successfully predicting and detecting dangerous level of coal mine methane from an artificial intelligence’s perspective were provided.

Keywords: Sensors; machine learning; coal mine methane; underground mining operations
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