Estimating the continuous risk of accidents occuring in the mining industry in South Africa

• Main Authors: Van den Honert, Andrew Francis, Vlok, Pieter-Jan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stellenbosch University 2015-11-01
• Series: South African Journal of Industrial Engineering
• Subjects: safety; mining; accidents; Mathematical Modelling; Artificial neural networks
• Online Access: http://sajie.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/1121

This study contributes to the on-going efforts to improve occupational safety in the mining industry by creating a model capable of predicting the continuous risk of occupational accidents occurring. Contributing factors were identified and their sensitivity quantified. The approach included using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to identify patterns between the input attributes and to predict the continuous risk of accidents occurring. The predictive Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model used in this research was created, trained, and validated in the form of a case study with data from a platinum mine near Rustenburg in South Africa. This resulted in meaningful correlation between the predicted continuous risk and actual accidents.