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By M. Cross

INTRODUCTION The results of the Japanese dissective investigations have [l-4] transformed our understanding of how the blast furnace operates. These studies revealed an internal structure of the furnace burden with five main zones, as illustrated in Figure 1. In the granular zone the charged material retains its structure whereas in the cohesive zone the iron ore particles are at advanced stages of reduction and form a semi-molten mass with a relatively high flow resistance. In the active coke zone molten iron and slag flow through a matrix of loosely packed coke. The raceway is a relatively small void space generated by displacement of coke due to the hot blast momentum, whilst the hearth is packed with coke, slag and molten iron. [ ] It is now well appreciated that furnace control is largely achieved and maintained by using the burden charge distribution to determine the gas glow distribution within the furnace and, hence, the shape and extent of the cohesive zone. In fact, Wakayama et a1 [5] of Nippon Steel Corporation state that optimum furnace operation is synonomous with the formation of a desirable cohesive zone shape, which in turn is almost solely determined by the burden charge distribution and its mechanical properties [6]. Much of the development work on operating furnaces since the dissective investigations has been oriented towards the identification of external furnace measures which reliably predict the shape of the cohesive zone. Currently the most popular measures are top gas temperature, velocity and CO/CO, ratio profiles [5]. More recently pressure distributions as evaluated from a series of wall measurements down the height of the furnace are also being utilised [7] to identify the position and shape of the cohesive zone. A great deal of emphasis has been placed upon achieving a consistent quality in the burden charge materials, establishing a suitable set of operating conditions and only making changes when forced to, ie., the operation for some reason moves outside a desired operating range or the production requirements change. Operational control schemes based upon this philosophy (eg., Kawasaki's GO-STOP system [8]) have been remarkably successful at achieving both high production rates and relatively low fuel costs. Mathematical models have long been used as tools to assist in the analysis of the blast furnace process. Although, the models have been useful in post-operative analysis and for identifying trends, etc., they have not proved reliable for detailed design criteria or as the basis for effective control schemes. Such mathematical models have moved from simple statistical correlation, through overall and stagewise heat-and-mass balance calcu-

Jan 1, 1984

(Members are urged to send in for this column any notes of interest concerning themselves or their fellow-members.) The following members have registered recently at the Headquarters of the Institute Seeley W. Mudd, Los Angeles, Cal. Charles Janin, San Francisco, Cal. Edgar Rickard, London, England. Donnel F. Hewett, Washington, D. C. L. Maurice Cockerell, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Jan 4, 1913

By Samuel S. Wyer

Over 8,000,000 people in the United States depend on natural gas for their cooking, heating and lighting service. This service has been made possible only by the investment of large amounts of capital in transportation lines connecting the gas wells to the various communities, thus combining a hazardous mining operation with a public utility service. The effect that making these lines " common carriers" will have on the present and future service to these 8,000,000 or more people is of far reaching ethical and economic importance, and deserves careful consideration. As an introduction, it must be conceded that: 1. Natural gas, although a mineral and obtained by a mining operation—with more uncontrollable and uncertain features to cope with than exist in the mining of coal or other minerals—when served to the public becomes a public utility service. 2. The governmental power to regulate all public utilities in the interests of the public cannot be successfully disputed. 3. Mere suggestion of inconvenience to the utility is wholly irrelevant, as it cannot be considered or allowed to influence in making a defense against governmental regulation. Unfortunately it is not generally appreciated that:.. I . 1. Legislative enactments are not necessarily laws, and cannot abrogate economic laws or alter engineering facts. 2. There is a clear distinction between "common carrier7' and "public utility," although the terms are frequently confused. "A common carrier is one who undertakes for hire to transport persons or goods, or both, from place to place for all persons indifferently, the term implying indifference as to whom shall be served, and an equal readiness to serve all who apply, in the order of their application." On the other hand, property becomes a "public utility" only "when for a particular purpose the public have a right to resort to the premises and make use of them." It is, therefore, important to note that not all public utilities can be regarded as common carriers. The U. S. Supreme Court has already

Jan 1, 1915

By E. J. Wasp, N. T. Cowper, R. A. Davis, W. F. McDermott

On October 26, 1967, the world's first long distance iron ore slurry line was put into service by Savage River Mines. The commissioning of this $5 million installation climaxed three years of development, testing, and construction. The mine and concentrator are located approximately 30 miles from the town of Waratah in a rugged semi-mountainous terrain. The open pit mine will produce approximately 5 million long tons a year of crude ore, which is ground in autogenous mills, separated magnetically, thickened and prepared for the pipeline. The 53-mile pipeline transports the 2,250,000 tons of concentrate north to Port Latta. The Port Latta facilities include the receiving, storage and thickening equipment for the slurry as well as filtering, balling and pelletizing equipment to produce the 2,250,000 tons of high grade iron ore pellets. Five vertical shaft furnaces are used for pelletizing.

Jan 1, 1969

By S. P. Holt

The chief use of scrapers at this mine has been on lead ore of milling grade, clean and dry, in stulled stopes, 50-100 ft. long, 5-12 ft. high, and pitching 20-30°. Scrapers have also been used to fill these stopes with waste. The first scraper used (Fig. 1) is modified from a Cleveland-Cliffs design, being only 30 in. wide. It is light, weighing but 95 lb., handles well, and-digs itself in; but it spills part of its load on a long haul. It could be improved by lengthening the side plates, but because of the double bent angle irons, it is difficult to make at mine shops and has been discarded. Fig. 2 shows where the light angle irons have failed, spoiling

Jan 1, 1923

By S. P. Holt

The chief use of scrapers at this mine has been on lead ore of milling grade, clean and dry, in stulled stopes, 50-100 ft. long, 5-12 ft. high, and pitching 20-30°. Scrapers have also been used to fill these stopes with waste. The first scraper used (Fig. 1) is modified from a Cleveland-Cliffs design, being only 30 in. wide. It is light, weighing but 95 lb., handles well, and-digs itself in; but it spills part of its load on a long haul. It could be improved by lengthening the side plates, but because of the double bent angle irons, it is difficult to make at mine shops and has been discarded. Fig. 2 shows where the light angle irons have failed, spoiling

Jan 1, 1923

By J. Kucera, J. Vreštál

DIFFERENT authors1 ' have been engaged in meas-uring the vapor pressure of pure cobalt. The results of their measurements satisfy the expected temperature dependence of vapor pressure and are in mutual agreement, with the exception of the results by De Dyk Man and ~esmejanov.~ The latter authors, by using the effusion method, have achieved considerably higher values than other workers. By using the isotope exchange method they obtained much lower values than other authors. The determination of thermodynamic functions of the binary Ni-Co system was carried out, as far as we know, only by De Dyk Man and Nesmejanov.4 This determination was based on extremely low values of vapor pressure over pure cobalt obtained by the isotope exchange method. Therefore we considered it useful to repeat these measurements. Furthermore, the reliable values of thermodynamic functions should complement the migration characteristics, the inner magnetic field data obtained by Miissbauer effect measurements, specific heat data, and the K effect and positron annihilation characteristics that have been achieved for the Ni-Co system in the Institute of Metallurgy of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Brno.5-9 The measurements in this paper were performed by the isotope exchange method. In this method, as has been shown by analysis,10-'3 the vaporization rate, w, can be calculated from the relation w = k/1oSw [1] i0Sw) [1] where L, is the activity per unit mass of the source, S is the area of evaporation, k is the tangent at the point t = 0 to the curve giving the radioactivity de-pendence of the target vs annealing time, t, and wis the probability for the tracer atom condensation on the target surface. The value for cc. can be obtained from the equation w = a + 2P(l-a) [2] where P is Clausing's coefficient and a is the condensation coefficient. In the present work the cylinder shaped containers for annealing the samples were used, characterized by the ratio 1:d = 1.06. Here 1 is the length and d the diameter of the container. For this ratio P = 0.514 and w =0.5, and w is independent of the condensation coefficient. The vaporization rate is related to the vapor pressure p by the relation where R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature, and M is the molecular weight of the component investigated. Measurements of the vapor pressure of the i component over the pure metal, p!, and the alloy, pi, at the given temperature and composition enable one to calculate the thermodynamic activity of this component from the equation ai=pi/pi [4] is and the activity coefficient ri=ai/xi [5] xi where xi is the molar fraction of the investigated alloy component. EXPERIMENTAL Evaporization rate measurements were carried out with pure cobalt and eight different Ni-Co alloys, which were kindly delivered by the Centre National de Recherches Me'tallurgiques Liege, Belgium. The composition of the alloys is given in Table I. The cobalt used in these alloys contained the following impurities: 0.016 wt pct Fe, 0.014 wt pct Cu, 0.01 wt pct Mn. Other elements were present in much lower concentrations. From the melts, samples in the form of small cylinders of 12 mm in diam were ma-chined. The thickness of the targets and sources was 2.5 and 1.2 mm, respectively. The lower thickness of the sources was chosen to make their over-all ac-tivity as low as possible. Sources were activated in

Jan 1, 1970

By Samuel Wyer

THE art of natural-gas compressing is now over 25 years old, and has grown at practically the same rate as the increase in domestic natural-gas consumers. There are now over 200 natural-gas compressing stations in North America, aggregating more than 320,000 hp. of compressor capacity and representing a property value of more than $22,000,000, and compressing more than 85 per cent. of all the gas used. The age and magnitude of the art make it evident that the use of gas compressors is a recognized integral part and universal custom of the natural-gas business. The public also is not without its rights and vital interests in this problem. Approximately 1,700,000 domestic natural-gas consumers in North America are dependent upon gas compressors for their natural-gas service. That is, if the use of compressors were to be prohibited, the majority of these consumers would be unable to secure adequate natural-gas service. Each consumer represents between four and five persons, and it therefore follows that the comfort and well-being-as far as natural-gas service is concerned-of at least 8,000,000 persons would be affected if the use of natural-gas compressors should be prohibited. These 1,700,000 consumers have invested, in services, house piping, fixtures, and appliances, an average of about $90 each, or an aggregate of $153,000,000, which is much more than the companies' investment in gas compressors. Furthermore, in all cases where the rate paid by the consumers is fair to the gas company-considering the value of the service rendered by the gas company-the consumers are entitled to continued service and protection of the investment they have made on the faith that the gas service would be continued in the future.

Jan 2, 1916

By E. A. Holbrook

IN my thirty years of educational work in the mineral industries and other engineering fields, this past year has been the most unusual and difficult one. Contact with educators from other schools leads to the conclusion that the same situation is countrywide. The first of our difficulties came from the shortsighted policy of the Selective Service in taking out of the colleges, continuously, all engineering students as soon as they had reached their eighteenth birthday. England, Canada, and Russia, too, even in the midst of their critical war situations, had the good sense to keep their young engineering brains in college, for they realized the vital necessity of a steady flow of engineering graduates into the war industries and into the postwar peace industries. As a result of the policy of our Government, our engineering schools were left with only a handful of students who had been rejected for military service. Our colleges, faced with the prospect of several years without students and without income, hastened to give leave of absence to many of their competent teachers who quickly were taken into industry and in many instances are now being retained there at higher salaries than colleges are accustomed or able to pay their teaching personnel. We are finding it most difficult to induce these men to return to their former engineering teaching work. In my judgment, it will take us three or four years to restore our engineering departments to their former level in quality of instruction.

Jan 1, 1946

Jan 1, 1925

SAN FRANCISCO SECTION W. H. SHOCKLEY, Chairman, PRANK H. PROBERT, Vice-Chairman, T. A. RICHARD, Sec.-Treas., 420 Market St., San Francisco, Cal. C. C. BRAYTON, J. F. NEWSOM. The San Francisco Section met on September 11 to discuss the problem of Labor in its Relation to the Mining Engineer. Mr. W. H. Shockley was in the chair. T. A. Rickard opened the discussion under four heads: The recognition of the union, the rustling-card, the sliding scale of wages, and the' contract system. He expressed his belief that collective bargaining cannot be ignored, and insisted that the mining company represented a collective bargaining of its shareholders with the men. employed in its mine. He held that the contract system was often used unfairly, but that used fairly it was the best check on labor tyranny. The rustling-card he held to be right in principle, in so far as it gave the employer the choice of employees, but he believed that it was often used in an irritating way to black-list refractory laborers. The sliding scale of wages was easy to establish in prosperous times, but it would inevitably lead to trouble when conditions went against the miner. His conclusion was that the quarrels of labor and capital were due mainly to a lack of the sense of fair play and of social justice. Albert Burch agreed with most of the foregoing, and insisted that 90 per cent. of the men were inclined to be just, but that the 10 per cent: made all the trouble. He stated that he had introduced the rustling-card in the Coeur d'Alene in 1899, as a means for getting rid of agitators. E. L. Foucar considered that labor was irresponsible. He described his experience in Peru, where the authorities promptly stopped a strike of Italian miners by threatening prompt punishment for any display of violence. Morton Webber also gave a bit of his own experience, to show that the chief trouble is that the men do not think for themselves, and are therefore easily led by fomenters of trouble. F. H. Probert described his experiences in Germany and. also in Arizona, and insisted that too often the men were not given a fair hearing. E. T. Blake argued that a manager must get the workmen's point of view, in order to control them effectively. He believed that young men who started life doing manual labor were in a better position to understand their fellow workers. George J. Young suggested that the mine owners should encourage the good men to lead the unions, and not leave the direction of the unions to the noisy element.

Jan 12, 1917

CHARLES H. MACDOWELL F. V. DESLOGE CHAIRMAN OF CHICAGO CHAIRMAN OF ST. Louis SECTION SECTION R. J. GRANT F. W. BRADLEY CHAIRMAN OF COLORADO CHAIRMAN OF SAN FRANCISCO SECTION SECTION

Jan 7, 1919

By Fred A. Krafft

The time allotted to this paper will permit only the sketching of general principles and practice as generally employed in the industry to maintain and preserve the physical well-being of the miner and his family. Let it be emphasized on behalf of the industry that coal opera- . tors, individually and collectively, have given primary consideration to the appointment of a mine or community physician who is charged with the responsibility of caring for the sick and injured. However, it too frequently happens that with the selection or appointment of the camp doctor many operators wash their hands of further responsibility toward the health and the working efficiency of their employees. The coal industry is so organized in most of the coal-producing areas that not only is the health of the individual miner an important production problem but the collective health of the entire mining community is a fundamental operating problem. This is particularly demonstrated when epidemics of communicable diseases attack entire communities, with resultant loss of life and production and general community distress. The problem and responsibility of maintaining high health standards among miners and their families should be given as much consideration as safety, economical production and efficient distribution are given in the successful operation of coal mines. Company Policy In the inauguration or administration of a medical program for a large mining operation or for an individual mine, the first question to be solved is what the company policy is to be with respect to the following factors pertinent to a medical program: 1. On what basis will the company and the employees finance the program ? 2. Should a contract doctor or a full-time doctor on salary be employed ? 3. What measure of service is to be rendered the employee and his family in return for his monthly contribution to the medical program?

Jan 1, 1936

By Fred A. Krafft

The time allotted to this paper will permit only the sketching of general principles and practice as generally employed in the industry to maintain and preserve the physical well-being of the miner and his family. Let it be emphasized on behalf of the industry that coal opera- . tors, individually and collectively, have given primary consideration to the appointment of a mine or community physician who is charged with the responsibility of caring for the sick and injured. However, it too frequently happens that with the selection or appointment of the camp doctor many operators wash their hands of further responsibility toward the health and the working efficiency of their employees. The coal industry is so organized in most of the coal-producing areas that not only is the health of the individual miner an important production problem but the collective health of the entire mining community is a fundamental operating problem. This is particularly demonstrated when epidemics of communicable diseases attack entire communities, with resultant loss of life and production and general community distress. The problem and responsibility of maintaining high health standards among miners and their families should be given as much consideration as safety, economical production and efficient distribution are given in the successful operation of coal mines. Company Policy In the inauguration or administration of a medical program for a large mining operation or for an individual mine, the first question to be solved is what the company policy is to be with respect to the following factors pertinent to a medical program: 1. On what basis will the company and the employees finance the program ? 2. Should a contract doctor or a full-time doctor on salary be employed ? 3. What measure of service is to be rendered the employee and his family in return for his monthly contribution to the medical program?

Jan 1, 1936

By Blamey Stevens

(San Francisco Meeting, October, 1911.) My previous paper is entitled, The Laws of Igneous Emanation Pressure. The present paper lays no claim to the exactitude and completeness of a law, since it is of a provisional nature and may be disregarded when experiments have established a basis for more exact reasoning. The general physical states in which aqueous emanations may occur are first considered. The possible physical conditions under which the mineral elements may occur in emanations are then discussed, and a classification of deposits, dependent on emanation, is proposed. A system of scientific experimental investigation is outlined, and it is shown that the physical and chemical properties of emanation may be exactly determined thereby. The investigation is urged as feasible and simple, and not necessarily requiring large and costly apparatus. It is the only step necessary to make possible the formulation of a complete set of laws of igneous emanation. Process of Emanation. In a rising column, magma ranges in temperature from 900° to 1,200°C. Exhalation must begin at some fairly great depth. What this depth may be we can only surmise, since no experimental evidence is available. Exhalation, however, continues as the magma flows upward, until at another level the occluded gases have all escaped. This depth is probably upward of 5,000 ft. (See Fig. 1.) All exhalations must come from between these two levels. As the whole emanation is the sum of the exhalations and residues, the residues must come from below the uppermost level. They will be most abundant when coming, from those parts of the intrusion which have solidified below the lower level.

Apr 1, 1912

By Ralph Sweetser

THE Round Table. on Qualities of Pig Iron, under the auspices of the Joint Committee on Qualities of Pig Iron, which is made up of members of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Foundrymen's Association, the American Society for Testing Materials, the Gray Iron Institute, and the. Malleable Iron Institute, was held at the Palmer House, Chicago, Ill., on Oct. 1, 1935. PROCEEDINGS R. H. SWEETSER,* New York, N. Y.-Seven years ago last June we had a round table on qualities of pig iron1, and at that time the foundrymen were out with their battle-axes for the blast-furnace men, and the open-hearth men were doing the same thing. After that meeting there was really a determined effort to find out about the qualities of pig iron, and great progress has been made all along the line. This afternoon we want to have a frank discussion of the qualities of pig iron, whether it is the molten pig iron going into the steel plant, or cold pigs going to the different foundries. We ought to hear something from Dr. J. T. MacKenzie, who is chairman of the Joint Committee, and from Mr. R. E. Kennedy, the tech-nical secretary. J. T. MACKENZIE, t Birmingham, Ala.-As a result of that meeting in Chicago, there was considerable agitation in the Foundrymen's Association to develop a set of tests for pig iron. One of the difficulties was that nobody talked the same language on shrinkage, draws, live iron, dead iron, and so forth, which were the main com-plaints against pig iron. By request of a committee of the Foundrymen's Association, the Bureau of Standards ran a comprehensive set of tests that did develop the prin-ciples governing the optical pyrometer as applied to cast iron and pig iron. Then the Bureau went on further with the fluidity test, and developed a method for the absolute changes of volume at the freezing point.

Jan 1, 1936

By Stanly A. Easton

SEVEN years ago there was installed in the hospital of the Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining & Concentrating Co. at Kellogg, Idaho, an ultra-violet ray quartz lamp, the standard equipment which is found everywhere in the offices of physicians and among usual hospital equipment. The use of this lamp was con- fined largely to treatment of pathological cases, still treatment of under-nourished children, run-down anemic people, both men and women, and, as a general tonic, was part of the routine hospital procedure. At the latitude of the Ceur d'Alene district and especially because of the position of the towns in deep canyons, with much overcast and cloudy weather, sunshine is not plentiful at any time of the year; for many of the winter months there is scarcely any. Underground workers, particularly during the winter, have little sun- shine; it is not unusual to have none at all for weeks at a time. Treatment by the ultra-violet ray lamp in the hospital has resulted in many extraordinary benefits but the use of the lamp is expensive and limited. Some weeks ago attention was directed to the automatic solarium equipment of the Burdick Corporation. The doctors strongly recommended the increased use of the ultra-violet lamp for its curative powers and tonic effects, urging that it be made accessible to all employees. Real interest was . . also displayed by employees with the possibility of securing ultra-violet ray treatment for themselves and families under better conditions than it was possible to have by the limited use of the lamp at the hospital. This resulted in the installation of the so-called sun room or automatic solarium as an adjunct to the mine change-house. An annex was built to the change-house, with dressing rooms for women, children and men from other departments, and the outfit put into use on Sept. 5, 1929. The installation consists of an escalator, or

Jan 1, 1929

By L. Weaver

THE Tennessee Copper Co.'s mines are in the southeast corner of the state of Tennessee. Polk Co., in the well-known Ducktown copper basin. Their new circular production shaft will eventually be the only ore hoisting shaft, and is located for handling ore from Boyd, Calloway, Mary, and Cherokee mines. A circular, rather than a rectangular, shaft was decided upon because: 1-The circular shaft section is stronger when lined with concrete. Reinforcing steel was not required, thus reducing lining cost by one- quarter. 2-Water sealing was desired; it was thought it could best be done with a concrete lining followed by pressure grouting to eliminate water seeps. 3-The shaft labor saving equipment could best be used in a large opening, so the round section was made for economy, sinking, mucking, concreting and water sealing. Less shaft steel is used than could have been possible with steel sets. There are no posts required; center beams and Tee plate assembly placed at 10 ft hold the 100 lb steel guide rails. The shaft is 12 ft 7 1/2 in. ID of the concrete walls. This is large enough for two 10-ton hoisting skips and a ladder compartment. One of the skip compartments is for hauling equipment. The grouting equipment was a 2%xlO-in. Gardner-Denver grout pump, air powered and developing 1000 lb pressure. A grout mixer, also air driven, fed the mixed solution into a tank coupled to the pump suction. Grout materials used were mostly water and Portland cement. Some Bentonite was used to seal porous ground near the surface.

Jan 11, 1950

By Byron B. Morton

NICKEL-BEARING alloys are associated with petroleum in the fields of exploration, production, and refining. In the first- named field the geologist of today makes use of such instruments as the seismograph, torsion balance, and magnetometer, the selection of proper alloys and metals for the manufacture of which is an important matter. Nickel-bearing alloys are useful for parts that require resistance to corrosion or that must have non-magnetic properties. Where special co- efficient of thermal expansion are de- sired, they are obtained by using alloys high in nickel (20 to 60 per cent), since, by varying the nickel contents, alloys can be obtained ranging fro111 "Invar", with a low expansion between -40 and 175 cleg. F., to those with coefficients of expansion exceeding that of steels. The latter are obtained by additions of chromiurn to the alloys. Alloys containing 50 to 80 per cent of nickel, which possess high magnetic permeability, find application in certain instruments where this property is important.

Jan 1, 1935

By L. Weaver

THE Tennessee Copper Co.'s mines are in the southeast corner of the state of Tennessee, Polk Co., in the well-known Ducktown copper basin. Their new circular production shaft will eventually be the only ore hoisting shaft, and is located for handling ore from Boyd, Calloway, Mary, and Cherokee mines. A circular, rather than a rectangular, shaft was decided upon because: 1-The circular shaft section is stronger when lined with concrete. Reinforcing steel was not required, thus reducing lining cost by one- quarter. 2-Water sealing was desired; it was thought it could best be done with a concrete lining followed by pressure grouting to eliminate water seeps. 3-The shaft labor saving equipment could best be used in a large opening, so the round section was made for economy, sinking, mucking, concreting and water sealing. Less shaft steel is used than could have been possible with steel sets. There are no posts required; center beams and Tee plate assembly placed at 10 ft hold the 100 lb steel guide rails.

Jan 1, 1950