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By Norman Visnes

EARLY in 1954, as initial development of the Galena mine was being finished, plans for stoping operations became the foremost consideration of the operating management. The Galena is being operated under lease agreement with the owner, Vulcan Silver-Lead Corp. Started in 1947, the Galena is a deep level development of American Smelting & Refining Co. and Day Mines Inc. under the management of ASARCO, in the Coeur d'Alene mining district. Lead mineralization was found on the 3000 level in 1950. In 1953 development on the 3000 level disclosed a siderite vein, later known as the Silver vein, which contains commercial quantities of silver in Tetrahedrite. This vein was explored on the 2800 and 2400 levels and later on the 3400 level, the lowest in the mine. Work above the 2400 level to date has indicated that the vein dissipates to weak mineralization, and ore values are uncertain above the 2200 horizon.

Jan 1, 1957

By J. F. Abel, F. T. Lee

Subsidence is controlled by a complex com¬bination of mining and geologic factors. For example, a compilation of worldwide data shows that, as the percentage of shale in the overlying rock mass decreases and the amount of sandstone increases, the angle of draw (and the area affected by subsidence) decreases. Limestone in the over¬burden appears to cause a more than twofold decrease in the angle of draw compared to a like amount of sandstone. Increased amounts of sandstone were accompanied by a greater surface subsidence relative to the mining height. The total thickness of overburden did not appear to influence the subsidence magnitude above super-critical panels. The greater the thickness extracted, the smaller percentage of that thickness shows up at the surface as subsidence. The greater the percent of the seam extracted, the greater the subsidence reaching the surface. The maximum subsidence above room-and-pillar panels de¬pends on the pillar height and minimum width as well as the other factors listed.

Jan 1, 1984

By Robert Stefanko

Longwall mining which has a long history abroad, was used only on a limited scale in the United States until less than 20 years ago. Modern longwall mining in this country can be said to have begun in 1960 with the first installation of self-advancing props in a coal mine in southern West Virginia. In Europe, because of adverse natural conditions, longwall mining is frequently the only practical method, but, in the United States, the system has had to compete economically with highly productive room-and-pillar systems. However, because it is inherently continuous, it has greater productive potential than room-and-pillar systems, and, therefore, although only about 5% of the total U.S. underground production today is the result of the longwall system, its growth potential is great. As mining, by necessity, progresses deeper and must be done under poorer natural conditions, less opportunity will exist for the room- and-pillar system, and the longwall system will have to be used.

Jan 1, 1981

By Robert Davis Longyear

In diamond-drill work, a true sample consists of all the material cut by the bit—both core and cuttings. As the recovery of this sample is the object of diamond drilling, the utmost care should be taken to secure it. Speed of drilling and low costs are of little value if an inaccurate sample is obtained. The engineer in charge must study his material and lay out the plan of sampling, and then see that the drill runner follows his instructions; for the runner may be more interested in obtaining a large footage than in developing accurate methods of sampling. When the core has been removed from the core barrel, it should be placed in a core box in the exact order in which it is taken from the ground. This box, Fig. 1, is usually a shallow tray 4 or 5 ft. (1.2 or 1.5 m.) long, with partitions running lengthwise between which the core

Jan 1, 1923

By Joseph Hartshorne

Ever since the introduction of the Siemens regenerative furnace, it has been recognized that a certain amount of gas is lost each time the furnace-action is reversed. This loss comes, first, from the gas which passes through the free connection between the stack and the gas-main, which exists during the time the reversing-valve is turning over; and, secondly, from the gas which is in the chamber and flues, from the hearth to the reversing-valve, and which flows back into the stack when the valve is reversed. The amount lost each time is, of course, small; but, since a furnace is reversed from four to six times every hour for, say, 300 days in the year, the aggregate is large enough to be well worth attention. The estimate has been published1 that, in Germany aloue, the loss from the first of the above causes amounts to 500,000 barks per year. The loss from the second cause is, of course, much greater.

Jan 1, 1907

By ir. H. Eraly

The allocation of miners to teams, and of teams to production faces, is complicated by the high degree of absenteism of miners in Belgium. Therefore, the exact knowledge of who is actually present at the beginning of a shift and of the exact skills of those present, enables the foremen and mine captains to constitute their teams before all men go down into the mine in the most effective way possible. This paper describes the system of attendance recording and of displays which the foremen use to constitute their teams and/or to interrogate the personnel data base in order to do so. It shows how the foremen dialogue with the computer, to change the function of a miner within a team, to another team, or the function of a team as a whole. The implementation of the system, data bases, and data communication equipment and procedures, is described. The benefits obtained are presented for each level of the company: foremen and team supervisors, engineers, mine management.

Jan 1, 1977

By B. N. Whittaker, C. J. Bonsall

The paper gives an account of the factors influencing the stability of coal mining tunnels and goes on to examine various bases of support and lining design of such tunnels in relation to geological and mining conditions. The different types of coal mining tunnels are compared and comments made regarding the factors influencing their choice and basic design features. Foremost amongst design considerations is the design method and special thought has been given to the validity of different formulae as related particularly to UK Carboniferous geological conditions. Emphasis is placed on the role of the stress field in relation to tunnel stability. Shape of mining tunnel has been investigated and conclusions drawn regarding the merits of different commonly excavated geometries from a stability point of view. Detailed design aspects pertaining to determination of tunnel lining strength and resulting stability are critically examined and current design methods are compared. Data from UK mining tunnels are included as the basis for comparison of these design methods.

Jan 1, 1983

By Bunting S. Crocker

In the summer of 1961, the Anaconda Research staff and Kilborn Engineering Ltd. began a study to investigate the possibilities of using some form of autogenous grinding in the new concentrator which Anaconda was planning to erect at Butte, adjacent to their Berkeley pit. The following criteria applied to the project: 1) The Butte mill was to be able to handle 36,000 to 42,000 tpd of copper ore, taken from the Berkeley pit and adjacent underground mines. 2) The plant was to be built in six units. 3) It would be started up two units at a time. 4) Equipment from the Anaconda mill was available for use in the new location. 5) Tonnage would be maintained at Butte and Anaconda, with equipment being moved down as required. 6) The ore from the Berkeley pit was known to vary widely from place to place in the pit and to be generally soft and friable.

Jan 5, 1964

By E. P. Pfleider, W. D. Lacabanne

ROTARY-percussive drilling is a new method of drilling hard rock. Designed to give variations in thrust, revolutions per minute, and torque ranges, these drills combine the high efficiency of the rotary system in soft rocks with an increasing amount of percussive action in rocks more difficult to fragment. Fundamentals of the rotary, percussive, and combination systems have been described in detail in various papers-most recently by C. Fairhurst and W. D. Lacabanne1-but there is still much basic work to be done on the interplay of actions in the rotary-percussive system to enable the drill designer to achieve the highest efficiencies. Whereas the original units struck light blows of only 15 to 30 ft-lb, adequate for medium hard rocks, the present trend is to piston blows of 50 to 65 ft-lb in order to cope with the granites and other rocks having Shore hardnesses of 75 or more.

Jan 7, 1957

By D. J. MacKinnon, J. M. Brannen

Smooth, compact, dendrite free 24-h zinc deposits have been electrowon from zinc chloride electrolyte using a diaphragm cell. The cell consisted of sealed anode compartments containing DSA anodes separated from an open cathode compartment by Dynel cloth membranes. Fresh electrolyte was fed to the cathode compartment where zinc deposition onto an aluminum cathode was aided by air sparging. The catholyte passed through the diaphragms into the anode compartments from which chlorine gas and spent anolyte were withdrawn. Standard electrolysis conditions were: 15 g/L Zn, 0.12 M HCI, I5 mg/L tetrabutylammonium chloride (TBACI) as the addition agent, 35°C, and 323 A/m2 (30 ASF) current density. The effect of variations in these conditions on the morpohology orientation, current efficiency, and energy requirement for 24-h zinc deposits was determined. The effect of total chloride ion concentration on the zinc deposit was studied by adding various amounts of NaCl to the electrolyte.

Jan 1, 1983

By R. E. Reed-Hill

Recently Levine applied the Conrad-Wiedersich17 equation where H is the activation enthalpy, v the activation volume, T* the effective shear flow stress, T the absolute temperature, and ? the strain rate, to an analysis of titanium single-crystal data. The activation energy as a function of testing temperaturs obtained from specimens oriented for single (1010) prismatic slip is shown in Fig. 12. This diagram indicates a different linear dependence of H on T in the temperature interval from 220° to 300°K than from 0° to 220°K. Levine interpreted the break in this curve as indicating a change in the thermally activated mechanism controlling the flow stress. The purpose of this communication is to point out that the data in Fig. 1 is not consistent with the concept of a flow stress controlled by a simple thermally activated mechanism between 220° and 300°K. The Conrad-Wiedersich relation assumed that the strain rate can be expressed by:

Jan 1, 1968

International Trade in Nonmetallic Minerals. BY J W FURNESS AND E W PEHRSON (Man &. Met, Sept, 432 2500 words) International trade in nonmetalic minerals (exclusive of fuels) is dominated largely by fertilizer raw materials such as phosphate rock, potash, nitrates, sulphur and pyrites and the miscellaneous group of minerals including asbestos, mica, graphite, fluorspar and china clay Cost of trans¬portation deters any substantial movement of the building materials which usually occur widely in nature and are thus available near consuming centers at relatively low cost This paper, which presents a summary for 1932 of the world production, consumption and principal trade relations of asbestos, china clay, fluorspar, graphite, gypsum, mica, phosphate rock and potash illustrated by world charts, is based on an original study of 15 nonmetallic minerals conducted by the U S Bureau of Mines Practical and Legal Aspects of Mme Financing See METAL MINING Economic Significance of High-grade Concentrates See MILLING AND CONCENTRATION

Jan 1, 1937

By A. T. Janssen

Production planning of direct-shipping ore from a number of relatively small deposits serves to sequence development and mining of these deposits so that both long- and short-range demand can be met while the timing of development cost is such that the average annual rate is minimized. Hand-computed methods have the disadvantage that they require substantial effort and time and cannot be exhaustive. The application of operations research and computers not only overcomes these disadvantages, but opens up additional applications, such as feasibility studies involving alternative mining strategies and changes in the ore market. The method employed concerns linear programming and specifically the Big-M algorithm applied to the variant on the simplex technique with penalties applied to deviations from the desired ore grade. Acceptable 20-year production schedules could be generated in relatively little time, i. e. , in less than 200 seconds for the central processor of the Control Data Corporation 6400 system of the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Jan 1, 1969

By Staff

Concentrates at the rate of 1000 tons a day are being smelted by International Nickel Co.'s new commercial flash smelting furnace. Developed by Inco, the process is a radical departure from the former practice which involved conventional smelting in coal-fired reverberatory furnaces. In the new process copper flotation concentrate and flux are injected horizontally with oxygen into a specially designed reverberatory furnace, and smelting temperature is maintained solely by the flash combustion of iron and sulphur while the particles are in suspension. The major benefits of this new process stem from two sources: 1)-Substitution of energy from local resources for imported coal; and 2)-Production of liquid sulphur dioxide, replacing equivalent imported sulphur. A measure of these benefits is afforded by considering the saving, in 1954, of 60,000 tons of coal and the production of 70,000 tons of liquid sulphur dioxide, equivalent to 35,000 tons of sulphur.

Jun 1, 1955

By Thomas A. Simpson, Russell A. Walker

Hydrogeological techniques were used to solve problems of slope stability in open-pit mines of the Eufaula bauxite district, Ala. Geologic and hydrologic data were evaluated and used to design a system of dewatering wells to enable the operators to mine bauxite more efficiently and economically. Walls of open-pit mines in the district were subsequently stabilized by the operation of the dewatering system. Three open- pit mines, each at varying stages of the mining process, of the A.P. Green Refractories Co., were used to develop a sequential series of guidelines that indicate how to effectively remove ground water from the formations surrounding the ore bodies in the district. The use of sound engineering principles in well design, in combination with the correct interpretation of the pit hydrology provided the basis for solutions of the slope-stabilization problem and aided in the economical removal of bauxite from mines of the district.

Jan 1, 1976

By R. E. Ford, P. Tarassoff, P. H. Jennings

Copper oxide ore may be leached at all sizes from run-of-mine down to pulp, and consideration must be given to all available methods in determining the most economical one. Heap leaching was evaluated in a pilot plant at Gaspe Copper Mines, Ltd. which was designed to simultaneously leach two 1200-ton dumps of ore. The plant was operated for two years, in part under severe winter conditions. Two modes of leaching were investigated: acid leaching in which sulfuric acid was added externally to the leach solution, and pyritic leaching in which pyrite concentrate was added to the dump and acid was generated in situ by bacterial action. The pilot plant operation is described, and the results are compared with laboratory data obtained in 6-in.-diam columns. It is concluded that pyritic leaching offers certain operating advantages over acid leaching when copper is recovered by cementation in that iron buildup in the solution is prevented.

Jan 1, 1974

By George C. Toland

In 1950 the phosphate fertilizer market warranted the design and construction of a new fertilizer plant by Cominco at Kimberley, B.C. The initial rated capacity of the plant was 70,000 tons per year of high- grade ammonium phosphate. The plant was placed on-stream in 1953. One of the major problems in operating the fertilizer plant was the disposal of the gypsum tailings slurry which was a by-product of phosphoric acid manufacture. The original weight of dry tailings produced by the mill was 500 tons per day. This quantity increased over the years until a projected 2200 tpd was selected for the pond design described in this paper. The original gypsum tailing area was located south of the fertilizer plant and adjacent to the St. Mary's River. By 1965 the original disposal area had proven inadequate and Cominco's engineering staff had selected a 500 acre disposal site to the east of the plant.

Jan 1, 1971

By J. B. Scuffham, G. I. Warwick, J. B. Lott

The development of solvent extraction processes over recent years has led to their application on an increasing scale in metal extraction plants. The author's company has recently been awarded a contract for the design of the world's largest solvent extraction plant based on pump-mix mixer-settlers. The plant is designed to extract copper from a leach liquor and has an aqueous throughput of 12,000 imperial gpm. The design is based largely upon data obtained from the company's own research laboratories, where work has been undertaken on mixer impeller design, baffle design. settler area, organic entrainment recovery, etc. Investigations have been conducted into the effects of mixer impeller speed, recirculation rates, phase continuity, phase ratio, etc., on extraction efficiency, settler area, and organic entrainment losses. The implications of the results of this work on the design of a large plant using pump-mix mixer-settlers are discussed and the techniques used in overcoming certain scaling problem are outlined.

Jan 1, 1973

By Carl E. Williams

A computer program has been developed which will locate the economic limits of an open-pit mine and also designate which ore and waste blocks to remove per period (years or quarters) to maximize the discounted cash flow over the life of the mine. A set of operating constraints was carefully selected so that the following functions are controlled: (1) the removal of overburden by preproduction and production stripping exposes a fixed amount of ore; (2) a constant manpower and equipment usage is insured (except for trucks); (3) the tons of mill ore, concentrate, and stockpiled ore are regulated; (4) the number and extent of shovel moves are minimized; (5) the grindability of the rock is considered as well as the variable haulage cost caused by variable haulage distances and depths; and (6) the size of the shovel working area is regulated. As many as 50 alternate schedules can be produced per computer run. They are arranged in descending order starting with the best solution.

Jan 1, 1975

By H. E. Sadler, B. Silliman

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. THE research here recorded was undertaken early in the present year, and has been prosecuted steadily for about eight months. While the work has been under my constant supervision and advice, the labor has all been performed by Mr. Sadler, to whom is chiefly due the development of the successive steps which have led to the final result. The process is better than I dared to hope, and we are able to place at the command of chemists and engineers interested in the matter an apparatus of continuous and uninterrupted action, and methods of analysis by which the daily averages of the two variable and inconstant factors of illuminating gas, ammonia and sulphur, may be determined with all needful accuracy, even by those little skilled in chemical manipulation, and with very little loss of time. This research has been carried out in the laboratory of the New Haven Gaslight Company. B. SILLIMAN. October 17th, 1876.

Jan 1, 1877