PAUS Mine Rescue solutions – Made for Underground Mining

The changing environmental conditions in Underground Mining result in new requirements related to the safety of the employees and assets as well as the associated rescue services of these operating facilities. Just to mention the mines are getting deeper and deeper and wherefore the rescue teams have to travel longer distances to arrive at the scenes.

In an emergency every second counts

Most effecient rescue services require the qualified teams and adequate rescue equipments to arrive at the scenes in shortest time possible. This can be achieved by optimization of the logistics and the right choice of equipments. Following individual risk assements of the mine operation the responsible safety departments need to define the mine rescue chain. This e.g. includes the definition of the location(s) of the rescue station(s), the qualification and number of personnel required, as well as the rescue equipments needed for completion of the individual tasks. Based upon intervention times can be further optimized by use of adequate transport equipments.

Underground mine made design

Considering the varying and challenging conditions at the underground and the individual rescue tasks the transport equipments need to come along with special properties in terms of compactness, capacity, durability, reliability and variability.       

For the transport equipments PAUS is offering diesel and battery operated mobile equipments for ambulance, firefighting as well as special mine rescue operations. All solutions are specially designed for the underground and stand out with its high quality „Made in Germany“. To meet the individual requirements PAUS can offer a variety of configurations based on different mine proven chassis as well to equip with customized superstructures. Further to that PAUS is getting strong support by major rescue equipment suppliers.

MinCa 18 A

One of the main chassis in use for the firefighting and ambulance is the MinCa 18 A with hydrostatic all-wheel drive, a mine made suspension system, most compact dimensions and a payload of up to 4.000 kg. Whereas the suspension system provides excellent driving characteristics – just to mention the patient-friendly transport along with the ambulance - the high payload allows the fire truck to be equipped with a proper water pump, a big water tank and additional capacities left for other heavy rescue equipments. All these features are complemented by the durable and reliable design for long-life cycle and most economic use.

MRV 9000

A modified configuration of the MinCa 18 A chassis is in use with the most advanced mine rescue solutions PAUS is offering in collaboration with German company Dräger - an international leader in the fields of medical and safety technology – is the MRV 9000. The innovative mine rescue vehicle MRV 9000 as a first result of the cooperation has developed to bring the rescue teams in a self-contained and mine-proven mobile solution as fast and as close as possible to the emergency places. The fitness for purpose of the MRV 9000 has achieved by combining the mine proven designs of the basic chassis type MinCa 18 A from PAUS and the life support systems and further technologies from Dräger. The Mine Rescue Vehicle MRV 9000 provides an integrated life support system which allows mines rescuers to drive and not to walk through contaminated areas while providing safe and clean breathing air in a controlled environment and to further reduce the (life saving) times of their rescue missions.

Further to that Dräger and PAUS – in collaboration with the world’s leading manufacturer of systems for firefighting and disaster protection – will release soon its latest development of the Mine Rescue Vehicle with a special focus on innovative firefighting appliances. This solution has developed as a result of a clients need for fighting initial fires - where rescue teams are not able to travel and to bring their equipments in a certain lead time – in order to prevent from a fully developed fire with most often significant consequences threat to life, physical condition and properties but also consequential costs like e.g. for a breakdown.

UNI 50 series

In addition to the aforementioned solutions based on the MinCa 18 A chassis PAUS is also offering solutions based on its UNI 50 series with articulated pendulum steering, spacious comfort driver´s cab for up to three people and a payload of up to 15 tons. Besides others but especially in times of talking about risks of fires of battery electric vehicles using lithium-ion cells experts came to the conclusion that these fires need to be extinguished and batteries further cooled down by using a high amount of water. This can be provided by fitment of the UNI 50 chassis as fire fighting configuration with a much bigger water tank. As optional equipment the fire truck can be also provided with a water cannon to extinguish by having a safe distance between the equipment and the fire. This is e.g. important in case of fighting big fires causing a high radiation of heat or fires with a certain risk of mechanical impacts like explosions or falling objects. In addition to that the fire truck with an adequate water cannon could be also used as support equipment for e.g. high pressure water scaling or dust suppresion tasks.  

PAUS portfolio

All Paus underground vehicles are explicitly designed and built for underground mining and tunneling applications. Besides other products and solutions from PAUS, the MinCa 18 A and UNI 50 series can be offered with a variety of other configurations and superstructures for e.g. personnel transport, explosive transport, explosive charging, material transport, fuel services etc. Even the UNI 50 series is also well known for its capabilities and superstructures for concrete handling by means of transport mixers and spraying equipments.

All machines can be customized to meet your individual demands and requirements and are safe and ergonomic for operators, have high rates of availability thanks to their dependability and are economically deployable, enabling them to always be able to meet requirements in underground construction with flexibility, efficiency and reliability.

Continuously PAUS is offering configurations and options following the latest developments and requirements from the market, like nowadays e.g. diesel powered engines with latest exhaust stages Tier 4f / EU Stage V, battery powered drive lines, remote control and IoT interfaces.