Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

One occupation featuring continuous high levels of heat stress is ultra-deep mining, with the rock face attemperatures approaching 60°C and chamber temperatures commonly at 40°C with high humidity. Thus, evenmoderate physical work can cause miners to quickly exceed existing occupational heat exposure guidelines andincrease risk of heat illness. An extra risk is the prolonged transport to surface medical facilities. Beyond healthand safety concerns, productivity is reduced due to an inefficient work-rest regime. Further, the achievable oredepths are limited by cautious heat stress management.Currently, the primary strategy for reducing thermal stress in ultra-deep mining is by cooling and ventilatingmine chambers, with the penalty of very high energy requirements and costs. A potential alternative foroccupational cooling are individual personal cooling systems, where cooling is customized to the individual.Beyond improving worker health, this approach has the economic benefit of large energy savings throughreducing the need for wholesale cooling of large mining chambers.Jannatec Technologies, based in Sudbury ON, is developing a portable Active Cooling Vest to decrease the riskof heat stress for miners working at ultra-deep depths, with cooling intensity individualized based on acombination of environmental conditions, activity levels, and physiological feedback. The present proposalsupports this target through developing a Heat Strain Estimator Algorithm (HSEA) to regulate the cooling ofthis Active Cooling Vest. This will be accomplished by: 1) developing a model to predict core temperaturefrom heart rate and skin temperature; 2) developing the HSEA to predict overall heat production duringdifferent mining tasks; 3) Incorporate and test the HSEA's ability to serve as a health warning system and tocontrol a personal cooling system to reduce heat strain in the lab and during actual mining. The overall goal isto greatly reduce heat strain and increase productivity in ultra-deep mining.