Gas Sensors for Early Detection of Fire Hazards Caused by Vehicles in Underground Mines

Abstract

Sensors play a key role today and have been developed to be used in many applications that can be life critical as with e.g. fire alarms. When mines now start investing in information systems and information technology infrastructure, they have taken one step closer to digitization. This in turn creates opportunities for the mines to become completely autonomous in the future. Controlling, monitoring and planning such production requires new digitized solutions. Part of such a solution could for example be to mount different types of sensors in the mining process. Data gathering from sensors with diagnostics supported by predefined set-points enables early alarms allowing production personnel to react before a fire is a fact. This paper describes the conducted experimental study aiming at identifying risk for fire caused by mining vehicles in underground mines. The test result shows that some types of sensors have potential to early detect fire hazards.