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By Oliver S. North

Reserves of perlite rock in the western section of the United States are immense. A geological report prepared for the Union Pacific RR showed proved tonnage of over 400 million tons in southern Nevada alone. Yet the perlite industry is not large, and most of the mines are relatively small. There are indications that perlite processing, thus far largely in the hands of relatively small com¬panies, is becoming concentrated in a few large companies. For economic reasons the bulk of perlite sold in crude form has come from three or four pro¬ducers, although many individual operators have sold small quantities to limited lists of purchasers. Perlite is one of ultra-lightweight aggregates. Owing to its outstanding qualities as an aggregate, variety of uses, and ultimate economy of use, it has enjoyed considerable popularity in this country in recent years. Marked foreign interest also has been evinced in this material.

Jan 2, 1955

By R. P. E. Hermsdorf

THE electrolytic refining of metals for the removal of undesirable impurities has become a recognized necessity in the nonferrous field. Copper, lead, zinc, nickel, silver and gold have been produced in this manner for years. The United States Metals Refining Co., realizing that considerable quantities of lead and tin could be made available to the trade if a satisfactory method of purification of these metals could be established, decided to investigate the possibilities of electrolytic solder. In cooperation with Dr. Edward F. Kern, of the School of Mines at Columbia University, the company developed a process of electrolytic refining of lead-tin alloys using a tin-lead fluosilicate electrolyte. A pilot plant was installed in November, 1927, and the commercial unit was put in October, 1929. Since that time thousands of tons of electrolytic solder have been produced in this plant and consumed by all branches of industry that use solder.

Jan 1, 1936

By Kiyoshi Mizui

Processes for manufacturing prereduced iron pellets from iron ore dust occurring in iron works have recently begun on an industrial scale. Because of their high porosity and low mechanical strength, these prereduced iron pellets tend to oxidize again and disintegrate into fine particles during transportation and storage; this may result in such difficulties as decreased yield, undesirable work environment and heat generation during oxidation. A possible process for avoiding oxidation and disintegration of prereduced pellets is increasing the density through briquetting. The authors carried out briquetting tests under various conditions, attempting to find optimum briquetting conditions. They found that crushing prereduced pellets and adjusting the particle size to a certain range before briquetting increased the briquette strength and reduced the amount of binder needed. Oxidation resistance of briquettes and raw material pellets was compared in open air and at high temperatures. Briquettes showed superior oxidation resistance.

Jan 1, 1977

In one of the largest dredging projects of its kind, Lake Asbestos of Quebec Ltd. is stripping overlying mud and sand from the bed of a lake to reach asbestos orebodies 70 to 200 ft below surface. Black Lake, about two miles long by half a mile wide, was almost overlooked in the search for asbestos in Quebec's ore-rich eastern townships-a search that has been underway there ever since the first asbestos was mined in 1877. Not until 1948 was the Black Lake mineral discovered. Four years later careful exploration was carried out by American Smelting & Refining Co., parent firm of Lake Asbestos. The search involved more than 75,000 ft of diamond drilling and about 5000 ft of underground work. ASARCO, in its first asbestos mining project, decided to proceed with a dredging and draining program to prepare for open pit mining.

Oct 1, 1956

By H. L. Washburn, W. A. McConnell

There is not a coal preparation engineer alive who would equip his newest and most modern preparation plant with all new and untried pieces of equipment. He may install a few such pieces in which he has great confidence, but he will also spend much time assuring himself that everything else in the plant has been subjected to the test of time. He may arrange these units in a unique manner, but in general, they must have proven themselves elsewhere before he will approve them for his plant. A modern coal preparation plant contains only a few items of processing equipment, the remaining items being devices for materials handling. Consequently, pure automation is almost impossible. Although the main aim of automation is conservation of manpower, it generally results in uniformity of product, lower maintenance costs, and the many intangibles that make a better plant.

Jan 8, 1961

By Paul Weir

BLEACHING clays have been used extensively in the oil-refining industries for a number of years. Their use in water purification is relatively recent and less extensive. They are frequently classified as (1) those naturally active and (2) those active after artificial activation with acid. Fuller's earths fall within the general group of bleaching clays and gradually the commercial term "fuller's earth" has been applied to natural clays originating, for the most part, in the south- eastern section of the United States. Bentonitic clays are usually classed as activable and are prevalent in the southwestern section of the United States. Bleaching clays vary considerably in chemical and physical properties throughout the country, or even in different parts of one deposit (Table 1). [ ] The fuller's earth type of clay is characterized by a lack of plasticity, relatively adsorbent, foliated structure, and does not swell to form a

Jan 1, 1939

By Joseph J. Yancik, Leonard L. Felts, George B. Clark

Little information has been published concerning the actual or useful amount of energy obtained from explosives when they are used for blasting. To provide more data on this subject, 8-in. neet cement cubes were blasted in a steel plate box and the breakage energy evaluated by comparison with drop crusher results using Rittinger's," ' Kick's,%nd Bond's' theories. Theories by Bond and Wang," Lineau,' Hatch,' Roller," and others were not considered applicable. Those used in this investigation may be expressed mathematically as follows: [ ] The above equations were employed to determine values of KK, K for particle size distributions similar to those obtained from the blasting curves. These values were in turn used as a means of approximating the specific energy of the blasted material. The efficiency of crushing by blasting was then determined by dividing this specific energy by the maximum available work of the explosive per gram of cement.

Mar 1, 1956

By Dennis K. Mortensen

Startup of the 9000 tpd Sacaton concentrator is expected to increase Asarco's domestic copper concentrate capacity by 21%. The plant site is located due west of the mining operations, consisting of both crushing and concentrating facilities. Arthur G. McKee & Co. served as the prime contractor for the project. The Sacaton mineralization contains both sulfide and oxide ores. Primary mineral constituents are chalcocite, azurite, malachite, chrysocolla, and minor amounts of silver and occasional gold. Sulfides are distinguished from oxides when more than half the total copper content is in the form of a sulfide copper mineral. While non-sulfide copper minerals are considerably less prevalent throughout the orebody, they tend to occur quite intimately with the sulfide minerals, particularly in the upper zones of the mineralization. For this reason the decision was made to treat all the ore in a flotation circuit using existing sulfidizing methods.

Jan 11, 1974

By Paul Weir

Bleaching clays have been used extensively in the oil-refining industries for a number of years. Their use in water purification is relatively recent and less extensive. They are frequently classified as (1) those naturally active and (2) those active after artificial activation with acid. Fuller's earths fall within the general group of bleaching clays and gradually the commercial term "fuller's earth" has been applied to natural clays originating, for the most part, in the southeastern section of the United States. Bentonitic clays are usually classed as activable and are prevalent in the southwestern section of the United States.l Bleaching clays vary considerably in chemical and physical properties throughout the country, or even in different parts of one deposit (Table 1). The fuller's earth type of clay is characterized by a lack of plasticity, relatively adsorbent, foliated structure, and does not swell to form a

Jan 1, 1942

To Install Waste Heat Boiler at White Pine White Pine Copper Co.'s smelter 18 miles southwest of Ontonagon, Mich., will have a six story high boiler utilizing what otherwise would be waste heat from a copper reverberatory furnace. Designed and under construction by the Babcock & Wilcox Co., the boiler will supply steam to a turbo-generator furnishing power for the projected development. The boiler will be in line with and following the reverberatory furnace. Using waste heat from the furnace in place of fuel for steam generation, about 50 pct of heat in the fuel originally supplied to the furnace will be recovered by the waste heat boiler. Exploration conducted over the past 15 years at White Pine, wholly owned subsidiary of Copper Range Co., has disclosed reserves of 309 million tons averaging 21.3 lb of copper per ton. Ore mineral is chiefly chalcocite (Cu2s).

Jan 5, 1953

By A. Wahab Khair

This paper presents an analysis of fracture mechanisms in coal subjected to bi-axial state of stresses, indentation of laterally con- fined coal specimen. Coal specimens were loaded to failure by the straight wedge indenters at various lateral confinement pressures. Strain distribution and acoustic emission characteristics of coal specimens under stress were recorded. The influence lines of vertical forces acting on the horizontal straight boundary of the coal specimen for each type of wedge indenter have been established using holographic interferometry technique. The effects of wedge indenter angle, confinement pressure, and coal anisotropy on fracture types, failure modes, and post-failure conditions were studied. The results indicated that combined application of holographic interferometry and acoustic emission monitoring techniques is not only suitable for studying deformability of heterogeneous and microscopically discontinuous material under stress but it also enhances the mode of fracture during the post failure stage.

Jan 1, 1984

By Paul Weir

Bleaching clays have been used extensively in the oil-refining industries for a number of years. Their use in water purification is relatively recent and less extensive. They are frequently classified as (1) those naturally active and (2) those active after artificial activation with acid. Fuller's earths fall within the general group of bleaching clays and gradually the commercial term "fuller's earth" has been applied to natural clays originating, for the most part, in the southeastern section of the United States. Bentonitic clays are usually classed as activable and are prevalent in the southwestern section of the United States.l Bleaching clays vary considerably in chemical and physical properties throughout the country, or even in different parts of one deposit (Table 1). The fuller's earth type of clay is characterized by a lack of plasticity, relatively adsorbent, foliated structure, and does not swell to form a

Jan 1, 1942

By S. E. Piper, E. M. Buchalter, R. P. King, E. T. Woodburn

The problems involved in an optimum decision making model for flotation circuit are, first of all, to characterize the feed material in terms of parameters which can quantitatively describe the network flotation action in terms of a feasible set of control actions. Once the characterization has been postulated, it is then necessary to devise tests relating to parameter sensitivity, in order that credibility of the model predictions can be assessed. Once a credible model is available, the optimum control set is determined by a hill climbing technique. Details will be reported as to the credibility of model predictions using the stochastic flotation model on a network and further, computational problems associated with hill climbing for a complex objective function are reviewed. Discussion is presented on use of the Rosenbrock technique with constraints and use of a modified objective function with constrained derivatives when employing Fletcher and Powell technique.

Jan 1, 1969

By M. King Hubbert

DURING the past summer the writer was asked by the Illinois State Geological Survey to make a study of some of its economic geological problems with regard to the applicability of geophysical methods of prospecting to their solution. The following four problems were sug-gested for investigation: (1) the fluorspar area of Southern Illinois, (2) oil structures in the south central part of the state, (3) the lead and zinc-bearing area of northwestern Illinois, and (4) the water supply and gravel deposits of the glacial drift. The prime requirements were to find a means of obtaining a maximum of useful information with a fairly modest outlay of expenditure for technical staff and equipment. The method of procedure adopted was that of making a preliminary study of each of the problems named by means of available office data and published reports with supplementary field reconnaissance where necessary.

Jan 1, 1932

By V. R. Thompson, R. C. Westgren

In a recent paper,1 the solid-solution strengthening of tungsten and tantalum in a portion of the W-T;-MO-C~ alloy system was described. Additions of tantalum and columbium to tungsten led to significant strengthening, and the introduction of dispersions into these alloys was suggested as a means of further increasing strength. Dispersion strengthening of columbium and molybdenum alloys has been studied extensively.2-4 The approach used to dispersion-strengthen molybdenum alloys appeared equally suitable for tungsten alloys, and, therefore, a brief study was undertaken to determine to what extent the introduction of carbide dispersions would strengthen a solid-solution tungsten-base alloy. A base composition of tungsten and 10 to 12 pet Cb was selected; previous work1 had shown that the tensile strength of this solid-solution alloy was 50,000 psi at 3000°F. For the study of the effects of small additions of

Jan 1, 1964

By Ellis Clark

Within the last ten years the progressive party of China, headed by Li Hung Chang, the Viceroy of Chi-Li, has been making great efforts to develop the mining resources of that country, and particularly those that are within reasonable distances of the sea-board. Attention was first paid to the coal-deposits, especially those at KaiPing, which have been placed on a profitable basis with an output of 1500 tons per day, under the energetic management of Mr. Claude Kinder, M.I.C.E., and the successful financiering of Tong King Sing. These coal-mines were described in a report by Kwong Yung Kwang, edited as a paper for the Institute (Duns., xvi., 95.) The attention of the leaders of the progressive party has for the past five years been turned also toward the development of the precious and related metals—gold, silver, copper and lead. De-

Jan 1, 1891

By Harold E. Rowen

Sintering is accomplished at a temperature of more than 2000°F. For the purpose of this discussion it will be defined as the art of burning a solid fuel with 90 to 95 pct ash content. Think of the problems of combustion involved in keeping a home furnace burning properly with 12 to 20 pct ash in the fuel and remember that the amount of fuel involved in the 5 to 10 pct combustion loss represented by the definition has to be just about right or nothing is going to happen. Our forefathers discovered that many ores containing metals csscntial to the steadily rising standards of living were associated with other minerals, sulfur and arsenic, for example, which had to be removed before ultimate refining. They did this by utilizing the solid fuels they had available-the sulfur or other readily combustible components- to create roasting heat.

Apr 1, 1956

By C. DeWitt Smith

"It just looks like everything is doing fine but humans," wrote Will Rogers fifty years ago. "Animals are having a great year, grass was never higher, flowers were never more in bloom, trees are throwing out an abundance of shade for us to loaf under. Everything the Lord has a hand in is going great, but the minute you notice anything that is in any way under the supervision of man, why, it's cockeyed." Do these words from two generations ago apply to oil shale? The United States has been blessed with deposits that can yield synthetic crude oil at a cost competitive with natural crude oil-under present economic conditions and with existing technology. Yet, the oil shale program is cockeyed because of the artificial obstacles that have been placed in its path "under the supervision of man." But more about this later. For the moment, let's focus on...

Jan 10, 1974

By Robert Glass Cleland

THE OUTBREAK of World War II found Phelps Dodge, thanks to both foresight and good fortune, in a position to increase production of its mines and factories to meet the insatiable military and domestic needs of the times, far beyond all previous records. With the timely completion of the expansion program at Morenci, the company's copper output rose to approximately 447 million pounds in 1942 and to over 478 mil- lion pounds the next year, compared to some 300 million pounds in 1939. To meet the civil and military needs for fabricated cop- per products, the Phelps Dodge Copper Products Corporation carried out an expansion program comparable in size to that of the Phelps Dodge mining operations. It built new plants, enlarged and reorganized those already in operation, multiplied the number of technical experts on its staff, adopted new methods and new machines for the new prod-

Jan 1, 1952

By B. Barlin

Introduction The development of metallurgical practice at lambia Broken Hill is directly related to the change in mineralization of the deposits as mining progressed from the open pits to underground. The ore consists of a mixture of lead and zinc sulphide minerals, together with abundant silicates, carbonates and other oxidized minerals of these metals. The irregularity that characterizes the shape of the orebodies applies equally to their mineral content, which makes ore reserve calculations and the maintenance of a balanced feed to the metallurgical plants, problems of some magnitude. History The Rhodesia Broken Hill Development ,Company was formed in 1904 after an Australian prospector, T. G. Davey, discovered the outcrops in 1902. In the early years zinc ores were calcined for shipment but this proved uneconomic. Cerussite outcrops were then smelted directly in blast furnaces for the production of lead until 1929 when ore above the water level was exhausted.

Jan 1, 1970