Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering

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Browsing Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering by Author "Civil and Environmental Engineering"

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    Evaluation of Seismic Vulnerability of Hospitals in the Tehran Metropolitan Area
    Ghaychi Afrouz, Setareh; Farzampour, Alireza; Hejazi, Zahra; Mojarab, Masoud (MDPI, 2021-02-05)
    The Tehran metropolitan area is extremely vulnerable to earthquakes due to the location of its active faults and its dense population. Assessing the probable damage of a high magnitude earthquake on buildings and facilities relies on a precise structural survey, which has an empirical basis depending on historic ground motions. The probability of damage and failure in discrete limits based on different ground motions is estimated by fragility curves. Using the most matching fragility curves for buildings in Tehran, the vulnerability of the hospitals in the capital, as one of the most critical structures in crisis management of disasters, was investigated in this study. Subsequently, the existing fragility curves, developed for Tehran and the other seismic prone countries such as Japan and the United States, were compared considering the typology of Tehran’s hospitals. Finally, the possible damages for each hospital were calculated based on the most conservative fragility curve and the most pessimistic scenario, which were used to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of hospitals and health care systems for different damage states. After zoning the damage of therapeutic areas of Tehran, it was observed that at least 2% to 10% damage occurred in all hospitals of Tehran, and none of the healthcare centers would remain structurally undamaged after a strong earthquake with the moment magnitude of 7 or more. In addition, the healthcare buildings could be prone to significant structural damage, especially in southern parts, which necessitates proactive management plans for Tehran metropolitan area.
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    A Standard Characterization Methodology for Respirable Coal Mine Dust Using SEM-EDX
    Sellaro, Rachel; Sarver, Emily A.; Baxter, Daniel (MDPI, 2015-12-14)
    A key consideration for responsible development of mineral and energy resources is the well-being of workers. Respirable dust in mining environments represents a serious concern for occupational health. In particular, coal miners can be exposed to a variety of dust characteristics depending on their work activities, and some exposures may pose risk for lung diseases like CWP and silicosis. As underscored by common regulatory frameworks, respirable dust exposures are generally characterized on the basis of total mass concentration, and also the silica mass fraction. However, relatively little emphasis has been placed on other dust characteristics that may be important in terms of identifying health risks. Comprehensive particle-level analysis to estimate chemistry, size, and shape distributions of particles is possible. This paper describes a standard methodology for characterization of respirable coal mine dust using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). Preliminary verification of the method is shown based several dust samples collected from an underground mine in Central Appalachia.