A product that improves mine safety recently won its creator, Professor Yves Potvin of The University of Western Australia, the 2008 Inventor of the Year Award in the Ready for Market Category. Director of UWA’s Australian Centre for Geomechanics (ACG), Potvin’s invention, High Energy Absorption (HEA) mesh, absorbs seismic event energy in underground mining and improves surface support technology over existing rock. HEA Mesh – a cable bolt laced and overlaid with a sheet of regular or crinkled weld-mesh – tackles the challenges of deep, high-stress and mechanised mining. (more…)