**Answers to Questions Posted 1-7-2021** 75D301-21-R-71744 2021 Broad Agency Announcement: Development and Demonstration of Mine Safety and Health Technology The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act) permanently established the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research under the direction of an Associate Director, within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. One purpose of this office is to enhance the development of new technology and technological applications, and to expedite the commercial availability and implementation of such technology in mining environments. The MINER Act grants the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research the authority to (1) award competitive contracts and grants to institutions and private entities to encourage the development and manufacture of mine safety equipment and (2) award contracts to education institutions or private laboratories for the performance of product testing or related work with respect to new mine technology or equipment. This announcement is an opportunity for the award of contracts for enhancing safety in mines. The primary goal of the MINER Act technology mandate is to improve/increase the use of technology in mines to improve mineworker safety and health, and the intent of this broad agency announcement is to support enabling activities such as technology identification, validation, demonstration, adaptation, and/or commercialization. The Office of Mine Safety and Health Research of NIOSH is soliciting concept papers to conduct research, exploratory development, testing, or evaluations of new technologies to improve mine safety, or to adapt technologies from other industries for application in mining environments. The primary interest of this broad agency announcement is to promote the modification or final development of practical technologies or systems that can be adopted by the mining community in a short period of time. Under this specific solicitation, proposals to conduct theoretical or basic research will not be considered. NIOSH strongly encourages proposals that include collaboration with mining industry partners who understand the reality of the mining environment and can provide insight into mine design requirements and potential commercialization of the technology. The following examples are presented to further illustrate appropriate submissions under this solicitation beyond the more general guidance listed previously. 1. A safety and/or health technology that is currently in a prototype stage, which will require funding for final development and adaptation to the mining environment. This could include modification of prototypes to account for operation in the challenging underground coal environment, modification to meet permissibility requirements, and/or demonstration of the technology at actual mine sites. 2. A safety and/or health technology that is currently being used in another industry and requires modification to be adapted for mining applications. This could include system redesign, modification to meet permissibility requirements, in-mine testing to establish the efficacy of the technology, and/or demonstration of the technology at mine sites. 3. Analysis of candidate technologies to establish their potential to improve safety and/or health, and/or analyses of barriers to technology application or means of overcoming such barriers. 4. A safety and/or health technology that is fully developed and available for use but is not being adopted by the industry for reasons that require further analysis. This could include developing an initial operational capability by installing the technology in one or more mines for evaluation and/or market analysis to determine the reasons the technology is not being adopted and the changes that would be necessary to make it acceptable to the industry. 5. Analysis of safety and health information in the surveillance area or other work that involves the extraction of predictive information that could produce useful data for identifying the future technology needs of the mining industry. Fatality and injury data continue to highlight the need to develop new or improve existing technologies or adapt technologies from other industries to address safety and health issues in surface and underground mines related to the coal, metal, non-metal, and stone, sand, and gravel mining sectors. NIOSH has typically provided a number of topical areas of importance to guide responders in addressing its highest priorities, this solicitation continues that practice as described below. However, NIOSH encourages responders to propose solutions to other health and safety issues that are responsive to our guidelines; these proposals are evaluated under the same criteria as submittals under the focus area and receive equal consideration for funding. Thirty percent of the contracts funded under this program have come from this category of submittals and, in some fiscal years, have made up fifty to seventy percent of the funded proposals. Concept papers will be accepted from the release of the solicitation through January 15, 2021. Full proposals for concept papers that are found to be technically acceptable will be due within 30 days after notification by the Contracting Officer. Work that will be completed in 24 months or less is desired but is not a requirement; projects requiring up to 48 months will be considered. NIOSH estimates that the typical project under this solicitation will require between $200,000 and $300,000, although proposals for amounts up to $650,000 will be considered. Proposals submitted in excess of the $650,000 ceiling will not be evaluated nor considered for funding. It is estimated that about 6 to 10 awards will be made with approximately $2M to $5M available for this BAA. Topical Area of Importance NIOSH welcomes proposals in the surveillance area or other work that involves the extraction of predictive information that could produce useful data for identifying the future technology needs of the mining industry. As noted above, NIOSH also encourages proposals addressing health and safety issues outside of these focus areas: Additional Investigations related to the NAS report “Monitoring and Sampling Approaches to Assess Underground Coal Mine Dust Exposures” In 2016, Congress directed NIOSH to initiate a study by The National Academy of Sciences to “Consider monitoring technologies and sampling protocols used in the United States and in similarly industrialized countries for the control of respirable coal mine dust (RCMD) exposure in underground coal mines; effects of rock dust mixtures and their application on RCMD measurements; and the efficacy of current monitoring technologies and sampling approaches.” The NAS published their report in 2018P0F[1]P. In this report the NAS made a series of recommendations. NIOSH funded four proposals in 2019 related to the NAS report recommendations. NIOSH is interested to continue funding additional proposals related to two recommendations from the report: Recommendation 2: “Conduct studies to evaluate the exposures of miners not wearing CPDMs to ensure that the approach of detecting and mitigating high-exposures for designated occupations reliably results in mitigating high exposures of all worker.” While both the Bureau of Mines and NIOSH have done work in the past in this area, there is interest in a study to establish if compliance sampling of designated occupations is representative of non-sampled miner exposures. Recommendation 6: “…NIOSH should incorporate appropriate filter media that is compatible with an end-of-shift analyzer for respirable crystalline.” NIOSH is interested in funding work related to filter media compatible with the TEOM used in the ThermoFisher PDM3700 Personal Dust Monitor that could be utilized with the NIOSH field-based silica monitoring techniqueP1F[2]P. 2. Roof bolter automation and Operator Dust Exposure Reduction Full roof bolter automation could potentially serve to remove the operators from musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) issues in bolt and mesh handling and eliminate respirable crystalline silica (RCS) exposure when operating downwind of the continuous miner. Roof bolting is a complex process involving the handling of drill steels, roof bolts and plates, and steel mesh. In addition, there are other ground control installations processes completed by the roof bolter operator and machine such as cable bolting and rib bolting. However, the main entry roof bolting process is repetitive and could be amenable to efforts to automate the process to eliminate physical operator involvement. Solutions to automate this process, in addition to cable bolting and rib bolting, to remove the need for physically handling the roof bolting materials would be beneficial. The roof bolter operators are also susceptible to over exposure to RCS dust, especially when downwind of the continuous miner (CM). The current method to reduce this exposure is to regulate the roof bolter operation to only 40 ft. of operation downwind of the miner per shift. The canopy air curtain is also a viable control to reduce operator exposure to RCS. However, its protection has been shown to be variable. Solutions to improve the canopy air curtain protection and/or other solutions to reduce operator exposure downwind of the miner are encouraged. 3. Development of a purpose-built flame or detonation arrestor for li-ion battery thermal runaway Mining equipment powered by li-ion batteries is being developed for use in gassy mines. Li-ion batteries susceptible to thermal runaway may produce pressurized explosions when confined within sealed enclosures such as explosion proof or flame proof enclosuresP2F[3]P. There is a need for venting of thermal runaway gases to relieve excessive overpressures within the explosion proof or flame proof enclosure while ensuring that ignition of an external explosive mine atmosphere does not occur. Pressure-relieving flame arrestors for enclosures used in gassy mines were designed for arresting methane-air or hydrogen-air ignitions as opposed to thermal runaway gases. Solutions are sought to develop flame or detonation arrestors sufficient for quenching li-ion battery thermal runaway gases released from enclosures, along with supporting test data, test criteria and other information used to determine sufficiency of the arrestor, to prevent mine explosions. 4. Big data analytics and machine learning techniques As fatalities and other severe incidents (i.e., lagging indicators) decrease, the mining industry needs a more proactive approach to risk management that focuses on using Health and Safety (H&S) leading indicator data to help identify, predict, and control risks, Some examples of leading indicator data may include near miss incidents, risk assessments, safety audits, behavioral observations, knowledge assessments, workplace exams, injuries, citations, and worker compensation data from insurance companies or federal websites. Other sources of data may include data from mine monitoring/tracking systems, equipment operation logs, etc. The objective of this research is to identify and/or improve quantification of safety and health risks through the use big data analytics and machine learning techniques on large datasets. Research questions to be answered may include topics such as “What machine learning techniques or methods can be used to analyze safety big data in the mining industry?” and “What H&S outcomes (i.e. risks) can be predicted using available H&S leading indicator data?” The goal will be to develop machine learning model(s) to accomplish the objective, and at a minimum answer the two proposed research questions. 5. Intrinsically safe devices NIOSH has identified a number of products that have either 1) been approved as intrinsically safe under IEC or other authorities or 2) had MSHA approval but, as electronic components become unavailable or technologically obsolete, are no longer available. NIOSH would like to facilitate an introduction or return of these products or similar offerings to market. (Note that NIOSH cannot pay for the cost of the approval, but only for design and prototype work.) The examples below are for illustrative purposes only. Intrinsically safe camera for the utilization of Helmet-CAM technology. Portable, intrinsically safe logging anemometer for use in evaluating engineering controls in underground coal mining. Permissible PPE alternative for dust exposure utilizing a powered air purifying respirator (PAPR). Development of an MSHA approved light scattering instantaneous dust monitor, similar to the previously available Personal DataRAM pDR-1000 Monitor. Permissible Electronic Surveying Equipment such as a Total Station. Miniature Dataloggers, similar to the Campbell Scientific Model 21X. The development of products for permissibility should also include technological enhancements to improve performance, reduce the size of the product for better field adaptability, and/or decrease the cost to improve the acceptance of the product in the mining industry. Response Date: This announcement will remain open until January 15, 2021 . Concept papers will be accepted from the release of the solicitation through January 15, 2021, 3:00 PM ET Local . CONCEPT PAPERS SUBMITTED AFTER THE DEADLINE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Full proposals for concept papers that are found to be technically acceptable will be due within 30 days after notification by the Contracting Officer. Inquiries and Additional Information: Information and specific questions of a technical business nature only will be accepted via e-mail sent to Contracting Officer, Diane Meeder , at the following address:
[email protected] . Include your name and e-mail address on the message. Responses to the e-mail questions will be handled on a first-come basis and generally will be answered within 10 business days. PHONE CALLS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Additional information will also available online at the following address: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/researchprogram/fundingops.html [1] https:/doi.org/10.17226/25111 [2] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/researchprogram/projects/project_advancingexposuremonitoring.html [3] Dubaniewicz TH (2020) Thermal Runaway Pressures of Iron Phosphate Li-Ion Cells within Sealed Enclosures. Presentation to the Global Mining Guidelines Group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdGIG0qb4Jg