Investigations Into The Measuring Of Fine Dust For Technical Studies And For Assessing The Dust Exposure Of Miners - Introduction

The new regulations for the bituminous coal mining industry, issued by the mining authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany, are aimed at reducing to a feasible minimum any development of the coal workers pneumoconiosis (CWP) by lowering the admissible dust exposure of mine workers. Additional and improved measures of dust suppression and job assignment control *) are required for the purpose In this connection two basically different demands are placed on dust measurements: As far as dust suppression is concerned, the causes of dust development and the effectiveness of methods applied to reduce dust concentrations have to be identified, whereas with regard to the control of job assignment, the dust exposure of mine workers has to be depermined. Demands placed on dust measurements -- specifically for determining dust exposure -- are liable to become more severe since the threshold limit values were considerably reduced in these last years and since any additional dust suppression measures as well as a purposeful job assignment to certain mine workers are dependent on relevant measuring data. Therefore, research work has been carried out with the objective of measuring and evaluating, in terms of their effect (i. e. their incidence on the development of a CWP), size distribution, concentration, and specific noxiousness of any prevailing dust conditions.