Mining Engineering Commons^™

The Behavior Of Suas Under Explosive Loading Conditions And Implications For Safe Operating Procedures, Ashok Em Sudhakar

Doctoral Dissertations

"Drones are increasingly being used for tasks previously unimagined and the beneficial uses are evolving. The United States Congress has envisioned the possible uses of drones for both combating and conveying explosive threats and other harmful and destructive activities. Congress' intent is reflected in new laws (2018) and policies (2019).

All civilian available Small Unmanned Aerial Systems sUASs (Drones), weighing less than 55 pounds, in the current market are not designed for operations in explosive environments. This first of a kind research focuses on further understanding of sUASs response to explosive loading and the public policy implications. This research measured …

Investigating Blast Fume Propagation, Concentration And Clearance In Underground Mines Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd), Raymond Ninnang Tiile

Doctoral Dissertations

"Blasting activities using standard industry explosives is an essential component of underground hard rock mining operations. Blasting operations result in the release of noxious gases, presenting both safety and productivity threats. Overestimation of post-blast re-entry time results in production losses, while underestimation leads to injuries and fatalities. Research shows that most underground mines simply standardize post-blast re-entry times based on experiences and observations. Few underground mines use theoretical methods for calculating post-blast re-entry time. These theoretical methods, however, are unable to account for the variations in the blasting conditions. Literature review shows that: (i) there is currently no means of …

Correlation Between Delay Time And Measured Concentration And Concentration Uncertainty By Neutron Activation Analysis, James Thomas Seman

Doctoral Dissertations

"For the last several decades, it has been apparent that new methods of identifying explosives can help investigators trace their origins. One way to identify an explosive is through the use of taggants: materials added to a product that encodes information about the product such as when it was manufactured.

This research investigates the survivability of a new identification taggant called the Nuclear Barcode that overcomes some of the downfalls that have been identified in prior taggants. The Nuclear Barcode encodes information as a unique combination of concentrations of rare earths (Ho, Eu, Sm, Lu, and Dy) and precious metals …