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Out-of-seam dilution: Economic impacts and control strategies 169

best addressed through workforce education and awareness programs. OSD that
results from engineered systems is best addressed with more advanced engineering.

9.4.1 Workforce education and awareness
Working with mining various mining professionals, Chugh et al. [17] developed an
educational program on controlling OSD that was delivered to personnel at a southern
Illinois coal mine by the mine’s management team. Immediately following its presen-
tation, a study was conducted to gauge the program’s impact by measuring and quan-
tifying any level of reduction in OSD output.
The first phase of this exercise was to establish a benchmark to improve upon,
that is, measure OSD levels resulting from existing practices. An extensive indus-
trial engineering study collected time study data for 30 cuts and dilution measure-
ments at 700 points located across 10 crosscuts of advance in an 11-entry continuous
miner production section. Dilution measurements included mining height, coal seam
height, and roof and floor dilution thicknesses as shown in Fig. 9.4. Phase 1 mea-
surements indicated average mining height 6.53ft (1.99m) with average coal seam
height of 5.61ft (1.71m). Average extracted OSD measured approximately 11in.

120 60
100 50
40
Frequency 80 Mining height Frequency 30 Coal seam
60
20
40
20 10
0 0
5.77 5.92 6.07 6.22 6.37 6.53 6.68 6.83 6.98 7.14 7.29 7.44 7.59 More 5.05 5.15 5.26 5.36 5.47 5.57 5.68 5.78 5.89 5.99 More
(A) Feet (B) Feet
180 70
160
60
140
50
Frequency 120 Roof dilution Frequency 40 Floor dilution
100
80
30
60
20
40
10
20
0
0
0.0 0.9 1.8 2.8 3.7 4.6 5.5 6.4 7.4 8.3 0.6 1.7 2.8 3.9 5.0 6.2 7.3 8.4 9.5 10.6 11.7 12.8 13.9 15.0 16.1 17.2 18.3 19.4 20.5 21.6
(C) Inches (D) Inches
Fig. 9.4 OSD awareness program phase 1 (benchmarking) measurements: (A) mining height,
(B) coal seam thickness, (C) roof dilution, and (D) floor dilution [17].