Monitoring and prevention of gas explosions in underground coal mines using a co-prototype design model for dynamic...

The design of gas explosion rescue equipment is crucial to ensure the safety of miners while also enhancing the emergency response capabilities of safety personnel in Chinese coal mines. This study was conducted in three phases. In the first phase, in-depth interviews with coal mine personnel were conducted in accordance with crowdsourced collaborative design theory, yielding 22 specific design requirements for gas explosion rescue equipment, based upon which prototype designs were developed in the second phase. In the third phase, a Kano model questionnaire was distributed to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototyped designs. The data collected from these questionnaires were analyzed using mixed-type analysis and the Better-Worse coefficient to prioritize the most important design requirements for the development of the Co-Prototype Design Model. The results indicate that the functionality of gas explosion rescue equipment is currently evolving toward a multi-source, heterogeneous, highly-networked system. Future rescue equipment design should place a greater emphasis on user needs and leverage crowdsourced collaborative design to drive innovation.