National Mining University, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine:

V. I. Golinko, Head of a Chair, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, golinko@nmu.org.ua

E. A. Yavorskaya, Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
Yu. I. Cheberyachko, Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

Testing Laboratory for Technical Expertise of Collective and Individual Respiratory Protection Equipment, Spetssnab LLC, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine:
S. I. Cheberyachko, Research Consultant, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

The article gives the study data on protection efficiency of dusk resporators tested in coal mines in Western Donbass, Ukraine. Due to considerable dust content of air under production conditions, mine personnel suffering respiratory system diseases increase in number, which brings critical social aftereffects: disability and death rates grow and total life time of miners shortens. This issue to be handled requires continuous effective control over dust burden of miners. The coal dust penetration coefficient of respirators was assessed in a laboratory using a procedure as per standard EN 143:2001. It has been found that protection factor of dust respirators, given correct use, is high initially and is comparable with the protection efficiency estimate obtained in the laboratory tests. However, with time, with an increase in dust accumulation on filters, escalation of breathing resistance, when the half-mask droops down during execution of different work and when walking, the coefficient of leak in the field of obturation grows, which dramatically deteriorates protection of miners and gives rimes to dust-caused occupational diseases. The other causes of the worsened protection may be assumed weak insulating properties of half-masks PR-7, their design shortcomings, disagreement with miner face parameters, unavailability of a program on selection of half-masks and training of personnel to use and maintain half-masks correctly. To enhance respiration protection, it is proposed to add primary filters with prefilters, modify headbands, perform checking of isolating properties of respirators and to introduce training program on correct operation of individual respiratory protection means. The authors have calculated dust burden of miners, considering actual utilization time of halfmasks. It is proved that efficient protection factor of respirators improves by 70% with an increase in actual half-mask wear time by 15%.

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