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GUIDE |
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This site is intended as a resource for anyone interested in helping to reduce the threat posed by unexploded weapons, particularly landmines, wherever there have been conflicts in the last 100 years or so. Our main role as a research institution is to provide relevant and accurate information, and this site is our main way of doing this. Although we publish papers in journals and conferences, this web site is the only place where you will find all our work presented in a coherent manner. The site presents work in progress, new and old ideas, some well-intentioned crazy ideas, and some really valuable ideas. We also present working reports and uncompleted work because this site is a resource for our students as well as many international visitors. We try and keep the material up to date. However, our resources are not sufficient to do this all the time. We attempt reviews every six months or so. Check the date at the bottom of the pages you are reading - the most recent update is (usually) indicated there. Our ideas have changed rapidly as we have learned more about this problem, so any material dated earlier than June 1998 should be treated "with caution". The site is extensive and it may be more convenient for you to read it from a CD-ROM. If you would like a CD-ROM of the web site (with some additional material), please send us E-mail, and make sure you include your full postal and street address and a bank draft for US$15 made out to "The University of Western Australia" to cover the cost of burning the CD and sending it to you. What does the site contain?
The Mine Problem and Our Approach Unexploded ordnance has been a problem for most of the 20th century and there are well known methods for dealing with it. Most military establishments have well-trained experts who can quickly neutralise or dispose of almost any type of explosive device. Most unexploded ordnance is quite safe if it is not touched. Landmines pose a major new problem which has proliferated since the mid 1950's. We still do not have cost-effective solutions and that is why we are involved in this research.
A mine victim is not a pretty sight. Unless the victim receives prompt medical attention, death from bleeding or infection is likely to follow within 48 hours. Photo courtesy ATC, Peshawar, Pakistan (taken in Afghanistan). Landmines now affect about 70 countries world-wide, affecting millions of people and presenting a major obstacle to post-conflict re-construction and development efforts. Demining is the process of removing landmines, booby traps and unexploded ordnance (UXO) so that affected land can be safely re-settled. Humanitarian Demining requires that the entire land area be free of mines. The United Nations has specified a mine clearance standard of 99.6% for humanitarian demining which means that for every one thousand mines in the ground no more than three can be missed! Currently the only way to achieve this is with manual demining methods. Practically all research on the mine problem has been on improving detectors. Sadly there is little prospect of a major improvements in detection even though hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on this research. At the University of Western Australia Demining project we believe in making improvements to the manual demining method - currently the only method that really works. Rather than look for a revolutionary new device, which might become available for use in the field ten years into the future, we look at simple evolutionary developments using established technology. We can put these into use within a matter of months. |
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However we must do more than just development. Who's to say that equipment we develop here will be suitable to use in the jungles of Cambodia or mountains of Afghanistan? To understand these technological, environmental and cultural differences we work closely with demining teams in the field and develop the equipment to best suit them. They test the equipment and provide feedback, which we use to further improve the technology. Towards this end, we have formed a partnership with the Hameed and Ali Research Centre in Pakistan. They provide the field testing for our developments and work closely with local deminers to find out what is needed. This has enabled us to overcome many of the cultural barriers that can stand in the way.
Photograph: Afghan deminers Moqeem (lying)
and Hakim evaluating new designs for tools at HARC field trial centre
in Pakistan. |
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As an example, deminers in Afghanistan don't perform demining in the prone position as is recommended. Instead they prefer to squat, which exposes them to far greater risk of injury. The traditional answer to this is that it was due to religious reasons. Through our local partners we found out that the real reason was that lying on the ground made their uniforms dirty. They are proud of their demining uniforms, which are a symbol of status and didn't want to be seen in a dirty uniform or ruin them by lying on the ground. There are other reasons for squatting such as comfort and habit, but nothing religious about it whatsoever. We also aim to have most of the equipment produced locally in the affected countries. This has the advantage of decreasing costs, enabling designs to be easily tailored to the country in question and helping make the fight against landmines more self-sufficient. The visors and prodders used in Afghanistan are produced nearby in Pakistan. Most of our recent work has been on protective clothing and equipment, tailored for Afghanistan deminers but the ideas are usable in many other countries. We aim to provide cost-effective protection for deminers who are mainly affected by blast mines which explode while they are being investigated. |
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 Blast Mine Apron |
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 Prodder which shields the deminer's hand in event of accidental explosion. |
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 Light Weight Helmets and Visors - see also Air Cooled Helmets. Visors can come with Scratch Protection |
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Our starting point is research on deminer needs. From this we try to assess what protection is needed and other tools and ideas which may be useful in solving practical problems deminers face every day in the field. We have built up a library of photographs and data on minefields. We are also working towards a better understanding of demining costs and, in particular, how to forecast demining costs more accurately. We have written many reports and publications and some of these are available on this site. However, watch out! As our understanding has improved, several of our earlier reports have become out-dated or misleading. We have tried to make sure everything on our web site is reasonably up-to-date and presents accurate, reliable information. In 2003 we scaled down our demining research because we discovered that the difficulties we encountered in trying to help demining organisations adopt some innovations led us to some new understandings about the nature of engineering work. This helped us to understand that the cost of engineering work, including mine clearance, in post-conflict regions and less developed countries can be higher in real dollar terms than in industrialised countries. We discovered that water supplies in Pakistan can be 30 times as expensive as in Australia - see some reports on this.
| Demining Home Page | James Trevelyan's Home Page
| UWA Home page | For
more information on any of these send us E-mail at demining@mech.uwa.edu.au |
