Strata Safety Products - Emergency Refuge Chambers, CO2 Scrubbing Systems, Communications and Tracking, and Cap Lamps

Strata Safety Products is a worldwide leading provider of emergency refuge chambers and breathing air systems.

Portable, inflatable refuge chamber

The Strata Safety fresh air bay is a powerless inflatable refuge chamber constructed from durable, flame-retardant material. It is stored in an explosion-resistant steel container called the fresh air bay skid. In an emergency, the bay is inflated directly out of the skid using compressed air cylinders. Compressed air fills the chamber with breathable air as it inflates, and then oxygen cylinders and an air powered, active CO2 scrubbing system maintain breathable air.

An airlock compartment at the entrance minimizes contaminants polluting the air as occupants enter.

Steel walk-in refuge chamber

Strata Safety Products also offers steel, walk-in refuge chambers. As primary set-up, chambers connect to the main power and air sources of the mine where they can operate indefinitely. If mains power is lost, the system switches to a battery back-up. If mains air is lost, chambers are equipped with oxygen cylinders and an active carbon dioxide scrubber.

Chambers are equipped with a 12V lighting system and an optional air-conditioning unit. For state-of-the-art gas monitoring, Strata offers a monitoring system that monitors O2, CO2, CO and methane gas, in addition to temperature levels, inside and outside the chamber.

Refuge chambers for coal mines

For the unique requirements of the coal mining environment, Strata Safety designed a completely powerless walk-in chamber. This unit is standalone with supplies to last 96 hours. The chamber is equipped with compressed air cylinders, oxygen cylinders and an air-powered CO2 scrubber. Lighting is provided by approved flashlights and cooling as needed.

All Strata chambers feature an airlock compartment for purging the air, padded seating, storage, food, water, a gas monitor, first aid and a toilet. All are manufactured with a skid base, fork-lift guides and lifting facilities.

Carbon dioxide scrubbers

Strata Safety CO2 scrubbers are active scrubbers that utilize soda lime chemicals. Strata has multiple designs of CO2 scrubbers which are used in the chambers or independently in barricaded areas and safe rooms. Air-powered scrubbers operate on compressed air from cylinders and electric scrubbers from chamber battery packs. The soda lime chemicals are packaged in sealed cartridges.

Compact LED miner's cap lamp

The Eclipse cap lamp is compact, durable and ergonomically designed and features the latest in lighting and battery technologies. A bright LED lamp produces a brilliant 2,500 to 3,000 lux output with a lightweight lithium-ion battery. The complete lamp weighs only 1.5lbs. The optics of the Eclipse cap lamp are specifically designed for underground mining and this lamp is MSHA approved.

The Eclipse battery charging system retrofits existing Northern Light® charging racks with the use of an adaptor. The Eclipse battery supports Wi-Fi or RFID tags for tracking.

Cordless mining cap lamp

The Northern Light Polaris all-in-one, cordless cap lamp is an LED headpiece only with optics designed for the mining environment. The primary LED lamp produces 3,000 lux output. The high-capacity lithium-ion battery and LED light are housed in a single, impact, dust and water-resistant plastic enclosure. Polaris is MSHA-approval pending.

Underground mining wireless tracking and communications system

StrataCommTrac is an intrinsically safe, fully wireless communications and electronic tracking system for underground mining. The StrataCommTrac node-based system communicates on mesh architecture and does not require any hard-wire backbone or pre-existing communications infrastructure.

Fixed underground nodes are battery operated and require no external power source or recharging. Battery life exceeds one year. The mobile miner communicators are powered with rechargeable batteries.

Benefits include:

• Simple pick and place of fixed nodes around the mine
• Self-forming routing scheme
• Communication is achieved with text messages and tracking with automatic ID data transmissions from the miner mobile units
• Surface monitoring is done on a intuitive graphic user interface (GUI) used for mapping, message display and data logging
• Simple battery and node replacement minimizes recurring costs