Recommended Guidelines for Oxygen Self-Rescuers. Volume 3. Escapetime Studies in Underground Coal Mines

摘要

The objectives of this project were to (1) determine escape speed in different mine conditions, (2) evaluate the performance of chemical oxygen self-contained self-rescuers (SCSR) under actual escape conditions, and (3) measure the physiological cost of mine escape. A special escapeway was established so that escape speeds and the use of SCSR's could be analyzed over a wide range of conditions, including travelway heights of 30 in to 7 ft. The average escape speeds ranged from 96 ft/min crawling to 264 ft/min for head-bent walking. The average life of six SCSR's was 60.8 min; those traveling faster consumed their SCSR's faster, although the total distance traveled before exhaustion of the SCSR was independent of speed of travel. Physiological data were also recorded. The average respiration rate was 41 L/min and the average oxygen consumption was 1.38 L/min.