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Since the comprehensive review of the Persian fields presented by Sir John Cadman last year, operations have proceeded normally. No developments of especial importance fall to be recorded and it remains only to bring up to date the full information given at the beginning of 1933. Controlled production from the Masjid-i-Sulaiman and Haft Kel fields has been maintained at slightly higher rates than during 1932. The figures for the past five years are as follows: These represent crude oil and products piped to the coast but exclude products reinjected into the reservoir, a process that has been in continuous operation at Masjid-i-Sulaiman during the period under review. The systematic delimitation of the Haft Kel field has been continued during the past year and results have been sufficiently encouraging to justify the inception of a wider scheme for distribution of production. Drilling has been resumed recently in the Persian sector of the Naft Khaneh field, and preliminary survey work is in progress for the selection of a site for a refinery at Kermanshah arid the construction of a connecting pipe line. Investigations in connection with the scientific control of reservoir were dealt with in considerable detail in last year's review. This work has been steadily pursued during 1933 and certain of the investigations have been the subject of papers presented to the World Petroleum Congress held in London in July of last year.

Jan 1, 1934

By C. C. McDermond

In reviewing petroleum development in Venezuela during the year 1936, it is well to bear in mind certain factors that affected progress, although not directly connected with the oil industry itself. At the start of the year, when the present Federal Administration took over the reins of government, reaction against the former regime resulted in some popular uprisings. Although these were entirely political in character, they were not without their effect on the oil industry itself. Such popular agitation really ended with a short general strike in Caracas, Maracaibo and other cities during June, these strikes being based on demands for certain changes in government policies. The strikes were duly investigated and their motives taken into consideration by the executive power or by Congress, and during the year many of the civil, political and administrative laws have been revised. In June and December, however, it was necessary to suspend activities in drilling and production work, particularly in the Lake Maracaibo Basin area. In June a strike caused a five-day shutdown in the main producing fields and on Dec. 14 labor difficulties resulted in a shutdown that continued to the end of the year, which necessitated suspension of all drilling and production in the Lake Basin area and curtailment of shipments to deep-water terminals. Actually, the strike lasted for a period of 42 days, until Federal intervention brought the dispute to a close with minor wage increases to workers hut with no loss of initiative or independence on the part of the oil companies. Operations in eastern Venezuela were not affected by the labor disturbances, production and exports having been reduced in December only in the Lake Basin fields. Well Completions On Jan. 1, 1937, a total of 3384 wells had been completed throughout Venezuelan fields, as compared with 3094 on Jan. 1,1936. Of these wells, 2005 were producers. The 290 completions effected during 1936 were by the following operating companies: Lago Petroleum Corporation, 123 completions; Dutch Shell group, 104; Standard Oil Company of Venezuela, 46; Mene Grande Oil Co., 15; British Controlled Oilfields, Ltd., 2.

Jan 1, 1937

By R. L. Dalton, L. A. Rapoport, C. W. Carpenter

Procedures have been developed to study the performance characteristics of unconfined pilot water floods using scaled laboratory models. The effects of operating conditions on pilot performance for variozrs well patterns have been investigated. The limitations of the laboratory model studies are outlined. Relationships between the oil recoveries of pilots and large-scale floods have been established. The applications of model studies to the prediction of large-scale waterflood performance and pilot flood design are discussed. INTRODUCTION Pilot water floods are undertaken to evaluate operational procedures and to gain advance information about the performance of an extensive water flood. In general, however, the performance of a pilot flood is not directly indicative of what can be expected from a large-scale pattern water flood. This difference stems from the fact that the over-all flow configurations are not the same for the two systems. A water flood normally consists of an array of identical well patterns. In such an array, the perimeters of the well patterns are axes of symmetry and act as impermeable boundaries. Thus, an extensive, pattern water flood can be visualized as a repetition of "confined" floods. In contrast, a pilot water flood involving only one or a few well patterns is "unconfined". Here the well patterns are not balanced by other flood units; hence, the perimeter of the pilot area does not act as an effective boundary. Accordingly, only a portion of the fluids injected (and also of those originally contained within the pilot area) is captured by the producers of the pilot. The rest escapes into the surrounding reservoir. This usually causes the amounts of oil and water produced in the pilot to be different from those recovered by a producer in an extensive water flood. Moreover, the recovery observed in the pilot can be expected to be greatly influenced by operating conditions, i.e., by the bottom-hole pressures at the injection and producing wells. The above considerations show that full utilization of pilot test results and reliable prediction of large- scale water floods require a knowledge of the relationship between the recovery performance of confined and unconfined well patterns. To date, only limited basic information is available on the behavior of pilot water floods. Craig, et al,' have investigated the effects of initial gas saturation, oil-to-water mobility ratio, and well damage on the oil recovered from a single, "normal" five-spot pilot pattern (Fig. 1). Rosenbaum and Matthews2 studied the effect of initial gas saturation and mobility ratio on the ratio of production rate to injection rate for various groupings of five-spot patterns. Paulse113 investigated the effect of mobility ratio and distance from the pilot to the edge of the reservoir on the areal sweep in a single "inverted" five-spot (Fig. 1). However, none of these studies considered the effect of operating conditions on pilot flood behavior. Moreover, hardly any of the work to date dealt explicitly with the oil-recovery performance of the pilot floods. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of interrelation between pilot flood behavior and operating conditions, to illustrate this interrelation by means of experimental data and to compare the recovery performances of dif-

By David J. Mack, A. H. Kasberg

The transformation characteristics are found to resemble a similar binary alloy. The differences are due to the alpha iron particles. While strength properties of the isothermally transformed alloys are high, ductility is low, resulting in high notch sensitivity. The elastic modulus can be varied widely and correlates with strength. Abnormal grain growth sometimes occurs. A CONSIDERABLE amount of work has been done on the isothermal transformation of high purity aluminum bronzes using the methods pioneered by Davenport and Bain.' The first isothermal study of these alloys was made by Smith and Lind-lief,' but more recently Mack", " and Klier and Grymko5 have continued the work. In commercial aluminum bronzes, one or more elements are always added to refine the ß grain size and to improve the mechanical properties. The effect of these elements on the isothermal transformation has not been reported in the literature. No systematic study of the properties of isother-mally transformed aluminum bronzes has apparently been reported, although adequate information is available on their properties after more conventional heat treatments. The fact that a eutectoid alloy will reject face-centered cubic a during isothermal transformation at appropriate temperatures2'" warrants investigation of the properties of such structures. Another cogent reason for determination of properties is the fact that the modulus of elasticity of the eutectoid alloy varies widely with the nature of the heat treatment." Preliminary experiments7 indicated that a high purity eutectoid alloy would not give reproducible results in property determinations because of ex- cessive ß grain growth during heat treatment, a single ß grain frequently occupying the entire cross-section of a standard test bar. For this reason a commercial aluminum bronze containing iron as a grain growth inhibitor was used. The isothermal transformation diagram of the alloy was first determined. On this basis, the heat treatments necessary to produce representative structures were selected and the properties determined. Material A commercial alloy (Ampco Grade 20) of the following composition was used: Cu, 83.68 pct; Al, 12.31 pct; Fe, 3.68 pct; Ni, 0.28 pct; and Mn, 0.03 pct. This alloy proved to be very close to the eutectoid composition and may be compared with the accepted value of 11.8 pct A1 in the binary Cu-A1 system. Comparison is valid only because of the "negative replacement effect" of the iron? Since traces of excess y² are present, the alloy is slightly hyper-eutectoid. The material was received in the form of 3/4 in. round, hot extruded bars. Specimens of approximately ? in. thickness were cut from this stock and drilled to allow suspension in the salt bath. The structure of the as-received material varied from 5 to 40 pct a + y2* in a matrix of ß. The amount of a + y² present was dependent upon the ß grain size of the extruded material. The coarse grained portions did not form as much a + Y, as did

Jan 1, 1952

By J. A. Wilcox

A NEW LINE of specialists has arisen as a result of the trend toward labor socialization and collectivism in all branches of industry. These men are the ones who will govern the destiny of many companies and the labor policy of our government in coming years. They must be men of integrity and of rather exceptional qualifications; men who can foresee the trend of labor relations with business, and who are willing to sacrifice the immediate fruits of technical training for manual labor and study. They must take their place in industry, not with the idea of following the orthodox line of advancement, but knowing that they must stay at the bottom until they have learned to understand the viewpoints, the work, the advantages and the disadvantages of each classification of labor. They must not be of a radical nature or become easily biased, and they must study. You will say I am looking for a superman and in one sense that is true, but the business man and our government are both in the market even now for this type of man, and with the proper training and background, many of our young technicians can readily enter this field of work.

Jan 1, 1942

By A. Kenneth Schellinger, O. Cutler Shepard

INTRODUCTION OVERGRINDING, or the breaking of ore particles into sizes smaller than required for liberation, is a first-magnitude problem in grinding for concentration processes. The conventional ball mill-classifier circuit used in commercial grinding produces mineral particles that are all ground to pass an upper size limit, while the proportion of very fine sizes, or slimes, is uncontrolled. Calculations based on measurements made in commercial plants which were grinding ore for flotation concentration indicate that about 90 pct of the energy used in grinding is consumed in useless overgrinding.1 In addition to accounting for the consumption of a large amount of energy, overgrinding is detrimental to the flotation process. Overground slime coats larger particles and inhibits selective action by the flotation reagents on particles which by themselves could be separated very well. A further difficulty is that extremely finely ground minerals do not respond satisfactorily to flotation-collecting reagents, and both selection and recovery decrease markedly with particles finer than 5 to 10 microns.2 Conventional classifier-ball mill circuits inherently tend to overgrind the valuable minerals more than the gangue minerals because most valuable minerals are of higher density and are softer and more friable than the gangue minerals. The remedy to this situation would seem to be a separating mechanism which would separate free valuable mineral particles regardless of size and density considerations and a mechanism which would operate in the grinding mill so that valuable mineral grains would be removed from the grinding machine as soon as they are freed. A consideration of these ideas led the authors to the conception of a simultaneous grinding and flotation mechanism. So far as the authors are aware, such a machine has never been tried, even on a laboratory scale. DEVELOPMENT OF APPARATUS AND EXPERIMENTAL METHOD Apparatus development went through several stages before a really workable machine was devised. Work was started with a large cast-iron mortar 7 ½ in. in diameter and 8 in. deep. A cast-iron disk was mounted on the end of a vertical shaft so that it fitted loosely into the bottom of the mortar. On top of the disk four radial cleats ¼ in. high were bolted to agitate the ball charge as the disk, or impeller, rotated. The vertical shaft was driven at 100 rpm by a mechanism improvised from an old coffeemill type of grinder. A hole was drilled into the bottom of the mortar through which compressed air was introduced for frothing. In operation, weighed charges of ore which had been crushed to pass an 8-mesh screen were placed in the bowl along with water and suitable reagents. The impeller was then started and the compressed air turned on so that the ore was ground while being exposed to air bubbles. Mineralized froth was

Jan 1, 1947

By A. Kenneth Schellinger, O. Cutler Shepard

Overgrinding, Or the breaking of ore particles into sizes smaller than required for liberation, is a first-magnitude problem in grinding for concentration processes. The conventional ball mill-classifier circuit used in commercial grinding produces mineral particles that are all ground to pass an upper size limit, while the proportion of very fine sizes, or slimes, is uncon rolled. Calculations based on measurements made in commercial plants which were grinding ore for flotation concentration indicate that about go pct of the energy used in grinding is consumed in useless overgrinding.1 In addition to accounting for the consumption of a large amount of energy, over-grinding is detrimental to the flotation process. Overground slime coats larger partitles and inhibits selective action by the flotation reagents on particles which by themselves could be separated very well. A further difficulty is that extremely finely ground minerals do not respond satisfactorily to flotation-collecting reagents, and both selection and recovery decrease markedly with particles finer than 5 to 10 microns.2 conventional classifier-ball mill circuits inherently tend to overgrind the valuable minerals more than the gangue minerals because most valuable minerals are of higher density and are softer and more friable than the gangue minerals. The rem- edy to this situation would seem to be a separating mechanism which would separate free valuable mineral particles regardless of size and density considerations and a mechanism which would operate in the grinding mill so that valuable mineral grains would be removed from the grinding machine as soon as they are freed. A consideration of these ideas led the authors to the conception of a simultaneous grinding and flotation mechanism. So far as the authors are aware, such a machine has never been tried, even on a laboratory scale. Development oF Apparatus and Experimental Method Apparatus development went through several stages before a really workable machine was devised. Work was started with a large cast-iron mortar 7½ in. in diameter and 8 in- deep. A cast-iron disk Was mounted on the end of a vertical shaft SO that it fitted loosely into the bottom of the mortar. On top of the disk four radial cleats ¼ in. high were bolted to agitate the ball charge as the disk, or impeller, rotated. The vertical shaft was driven at 100 rpm by a mechanism improvised from an old coffee-mill type of grinder. A hole was drilled into the bottom of the mortar through which compressed air was introduced for frothing. In operation, more charges of Ore which had been crushed to pass an 8-mesh screen were placed in the bowl along with water and suitable reagents. The impeller was then started and the compressed air turned On so that the ore was ground while being exposed to air bubbles. Mineralized froth was

Jan 1, 1949

By B. O. Pickard

With more than a score of shafts and numerous stope openings to the surface, all inter-connected underground; with underground temperatures high, often exceeding 100' wet bulb; with an ore presenting a dust health-hazard; with certain rocks giving off inert gases; with an altitude of 6000 ft. above the sea level and a dry desert climate, the Tonopah mines offered an interesting problem to the student of metal-line ventilation. Tonopah is not an old mining district, relatively speaking. It was discovered in 1900 and Tonopah soon was a boom camp. Ry 1910 the mines of this district had paid many millions of dollars in dividends. At the time of the 1921 ventilation study, mining had passed its peak of production and the operators were striving to reduce costs, to discover new orebodies, and to attract desirable workmen. In 1925, the camp was operating on a still less prosperous basis, but the several managements had not relaxed in their efforts to keep the mines on a paying basis, neither had they lost their faith in the ability of the mines and the price of the silver to "come back." Early in the fall of 1921 the Bureau of Mines was invited by the mine operators at Tonopah, Nev., to make a detailed study of the underground air conditions in the Tonopah silver district. D. Harrington, chief engineer of the Safety Service Division of the Bureau, who was then directly supervising the ventilation studies, detailed district engineer B. 0. Pickard, mining engineer E. D. Gardner, surgeon C. E. Kindall, and petrographer IT. Insley to carry on the study. G. S. Rice, as chief mining engineer of the Bureau of Mines, was in general charge of the work. Upon the completion of the study each operator was furnished a report on conditions in his mine. In 1925, a supplemental study at Tonopah was made by the district engineer at the request of several of the operators, and each operator advised on the changes in his respective air conditions and recommendations for improvements. Recently, several of the operators gave the

Jan 1, 1927

By J. H. Swisher

In measuvements of the solubility of nitrogen in fer-rilic Fe-P alloys, tile nitrogen solubility is found to be Less in pIrospliorus-bearing alloys than in pure iron. The reduction in solubility is about 20 pct in a 1.0 wt pct P alloy at 1300°C and about 30 pct in a 0.23 wt pct P alloy at 440°C. Diffusion coefficient measurements at 1150 and 585°C show that phosphorus also decreases the nitrogen diffusivity in iron. In previous work on the Fe-P-N system, phosphorus was found to reduce the nitrogen solubility in liquid iron slightly.&apos; Indirect evidence for similar behavior in a Fe at low temperature was obtained by Dickenscheid and Brauner.&apos; These authors found that phosphorus reduces the height of the internal-friction peak due to dissolved nitrogen. The results of Dickenscheid and Brauner were confirmed by J. C. Swartz of this Laboratory in a single internal-friction experiment using the same specimen stock as in the solubility measurements described below. In the present investigation, the solubility of nitrogen in a fer rite-stabilized Fe-1.0 wt pct P alloy was measured in the temperature range from 800" to 1300°C. Additional experiments were performed in the temperature range from 440° to 585°C, using an Fe-0.23 wt pct P alloy and NH3-H2 gas mixtures. EXPERIMENTAL The experiments were performed in a vertical tube furnace wound with platinum wire. For experimental temperatures of 800°C and above, a mixture of 5 pct Hz in N2 was used as the reacting gas. The gas mixture was prepurified from oxygen by passage over platinized asbestos at 450°C, and subsequently over anhydrone to remove water. Flow rates of the gases were measured with capillary flow meters. The temperature was measured before and after each experiment with a Pt/Pt-10 pct Rh thermocouple. The specimens used for the high-temperature solubility measurements were in the form of rectangular plates, 0.534 by 1.6 by 3.8 cm. The specimens were cleaned in trichloroethylene and annealed for 2 hr in hydrogen at the beginning of each experiment. In measuring the nitrogen solubility, the specimens were held in the reacting gas until equilibrated, then cooled in a water-cooled copper block at the bottom of the furnace. The time needed for equilibration at 1150°C was determined by measuring the average nitrogen content of the 1.0 pct P alloy as a function of reaction time. As will be described, the nitrogen diffusivity in the alloy at 1150°C is only slightly less than its calculated diffusivity in pure iron. At temperatures other than 1150°C, the reaction time used in measuring the nitrogen solubility was about twice the calculated equilibration time for pure iron at the same temperature. With a few exceptions, the procedure for the low-temperature solubility measurements was the same as that described above. The compositions of the NH3-H2 gas mixtures were determined by collecting gas samples from the gas train and analyzing them for NH3 by titration with HC1. The specimen thicknesses were less than those used for the high-temperature experiments, eg., 0.124 and 0.051 cm for measurements at 585° and 440°C, respectively. Nitrogen concentrations were obtained by chemical analysis, using the Kjeldahl method. The Fe-P alloys were made by adding ferrophos-phorus to electrolytic Plastiron (Type 104 A). Commercial ferrophosphorus, containing 3 pct Mn and 0.35 pct Si as the major impurities, was first purified by melting under an FeO slag. In a separate heat, the electrolytic iron was melted and vacuum-carbon-deoxidized prior to making the ferrophosphorus addition. The principal impurities and their concentrations in weight percent in the 1.0 pct P alloy are as follows: Mn, 0.01; Si, <0.01; C, 0.01; 0, 0.003; and N, 0.0012. The impurity levels in the 0.23 pct P alloy are con-

Jan 1, 1968

By Lynn Howell

IN a previous articles we have described a technique for measuring the relative intensities of gamma rays from the radioactive elements occurring naturally in geological formations along the walls of a borehole. The apparatus consisted of two Geiger-Müller tubes mounted inside a pressure-tight chamber. Each counter tube was coupled separately to an amplifier and a frequency meter at the surface by means of a multiconductor cable upon Which the chamber was suspended. The output currents of the two frequency meters were recorded on a photographic paper as the chamber was moved in &apos;the hole. These traces showed remarkable correlation with the geologic formations, as evidenced by comparison with commercial electrical logs.&apos; Owing to the penetrating power of the gamma rays, logs may be taken in both open and cased boreholes. The apparatus has recently been changed somewhat. One of the counter tubes has been removed and a stage of amplification has been added. inside the chamber, This arrangement seems to give a more favorable signal-to-noise ratio and satisfactory logs can be now made in cased holes and also in open holes as previously, Briefly described, the chamber moving in the hole is made of 3,2-in. drill pipe and is about 10 ft. long. There is an additional extension about 2 ft, long at the top, inside which cable connections are made. The Geiger-Müller tube is mounted inside the bottom end of the chamber, Above this is the vacuum-tube amplifier with its batteries and transformer, In the top part of the chamber, small 45-volt batteries are mounted, which in part supply the high voltage for the counter tube, Additional voltage is supplied from the surface through the multiconductor cable upon which the chamber is suspended. Also, the output of the transformer in the single-stage amplifier is coupled to another single-stage amplifier at the surface through this cable. The surface amplifier is coupled to the Thyratron-controlled frequency meter, the tank circuit of which consists of a one megohm resistor across which is a bank of condensers varying in

Jan 1, 1939

Jan 1, 1881

By M. N. Shetty

LARGE copper whiskers (-100 p) of 11111 orientation were tested in a floor-model Instron testing machine, at liquid nitrogen temperature. (Testing methods will appear elsewhere.) Whiskers deformed by twinning after some initial deformation. A load-elongation curve at the onset of twinning is reproduced in Fig. 1. Twinning was confirmed by taking a back-reflection Laue picture, using a slit colli-mator, which showed distinct splitting of reflections. The tensile stress reached just before twinning is about 1.4 x 107 g per sq cm (-7.0 x106 g per sq cm—resolved shear stress) which drops to 1.2 x107 g per sq cm (-6 x 106 g per sq cm—resolved). This twinning stress is about five to ten times larger than the value for bulk single crystals of copper deformed at 77°K (-106 g per sq cm—resolved). Twinning models based on Cottrell-Bilby&apos;s pole mechanism are discussed in detail by Venables.&apos; In the present work a mechanism based on the idea of failure of a Lomer-Cottrell barrier by recombination will be proposed. An L-C barrier may fail either by recombination or by dissociation.3 Fig. 2 provides the necessary information. It shows that the stress necessary to break such a barrier is about 1.8 x 107 g per sq cm by recombination and 4 x 107 g per sq cm by dissociation at 77°K. The twinning stress reached by whiskers is comparable to the stress level required for failure of an L-C barrier by recombination. (Stroh himself points out that his calculations should not be taken too literally.) We consider a segment of the L-C dislocation which has recombined (AB in Fig. 3) over a length to form the total dislocation which then glides in the

Jan 1, 1965

By Thomas M. Drown, P. W. Shimer

THE precipitation of phosphoric with titanic acid, by boiling an iron solution which had been reduced to the ferrous condition by sulphuretted hydrogen or sulphurous acid, was first noticed by E. H. Bogardus in 1874.* Since that time, as far as we are aware, not much has been published on the relation- of these two acids to each other, and to silicic acid, in the ordinary course of analysis of iron ores. The following investigation may perhaps aid in clearing up some of the obscure points in the analysis of titaniferous ores. THE DETERMINATION OP PHOSPHORUS. From two to five grams of the finely powdered ore are weighed into a beaker and treated with about 50 c.c. of hydrochloric acid (sp. gr. 1.12), evaporated to dryness, and heated in an air-bath for * American Journal of Science, III, 8, p. 334.

Jan 1, 1882

By G. W. Tracy, R. D. Carter

Numerical calculations were made to determine the behavior of reservoirs with high-pressure drawdown and wide well spacing where the initial productivity is low and the wells are completed by hydraulic fracturing. The two-phase flow equations were solved for the flow into a single well. This well was assumed to be producing from a reservoir with hydraulically created horizontal fractures (four different systems with fractures were studied). For comparison purposes, additional two-phase flow calculations were made assuming a reservoir with uniform rock properties. The two-phase flow results were also compared with the conventional calculation methods, which do not include the effect of saturation gradients resulting from a simultaneous flow of oil and gas which are normal to this type reservoir. It was found that the conventional methods predict (1) a high and too optimistic value of ultimate recovery, (2) a high producing rate and a high reservoir pressure at a given oil recovery and (3) a low trend of gas-oil ratio with oil recovery. Included in the two-phase flow calculations were provisions to control the oil production rate by an allowable rate and, also, by a gas-oil ratio penalty rule. For the systems with hydraulic fractures, the producing rate was controlled by the gas-oil ratio penalty rule for most of the life. This is in contrast to the system with uniform rock properties which went "on decline" almost immediately. An unexpected characteristic of the systems which included fractures was the early rise in producing gas-oil ratio from 730 cu ft/bbl to approximately 1,200 cu ft/bbl, followed by a "leveling off" before the normally expected gas-oil ratio rise began. Additional features which are a result of hydraulic fracturing are (I) greater ultimate recovery, (2) higher average producing rates and (3) a lower average reservoir pressure at a given oil recovery. INTRODUCTION Some oil fields discovered during the past few years are producing from certain volumetric ally controlled reservoirs (often referred to as solution or internal gas- drive reservoirs) which are characterized by high-pressure drawdown at the wells. Since the available pressure drawdown at a well is limited by the static reservoir pressure and the producing rate is controlled by the available drawdown, wells completed in this type of reservoir usually produce at a rate less than the allowable from the time of completion. Because of this, this type of reservoir is referred to as a low productivity reservoir. Economic considerations require the use of wide well spacing and well stimulation by hydraulic fracturing to make commercial wells in this type of reservoir. Performance predictions for volumetrically controlled reservoirs have been made using a combination of two standard equations. 1. The "Schilthuis" or "Muskat" type material balance equation is used to relate the average reservoir pressure and the cumulative oil recovery. 2. The results from the material balance equation and the productivity factor as described by Pirson&apos; are used to relate the cumulative recovery with producing rate and time. The material balance equation assumed uniform pressure and liquid saturation conditions throughout a reservoir. The steady-state radial flow formula allows for a pressure gradient toward a well but assumes uniform liquid saturation. These calculation methods are adequate for application to reservoirs wherein the drawdown at the well to realize satisfactory producing rates is small compared to the total pressure. In low productivity, volumetrically controlled reservoirs, the pressure drawdown at the well is large cornpared to the total pressure. Although a precise number cannot be given for the magnitude of a large pressure drawdown, values in excess of 1,000 psi would definitely be included. For practical considerations, this usually occurs when the formation flow capacity is less than about 100 md-ft. However, this limit of formation flow capacity will vary with the well producing rate. The low pressure in the neighborhood of the well which results from a high drawdown causes evolution of large volumes of gas. This causes the gas saturation to be higher near the well than at a greater distance—-hence, a non-uniform gas saturation. Also, the relationship between the relative permeability to oil (K/K) and gas saturation is nonlinear but decreases approximately in an exponential way with increases in gas saturation. Because of this, the following chain reaction is established.

By AIME AIME

THE John Fritz Gold Medal for 1929 was presented to Herbert Hoover at the Executive Mansion on April 25, at a luncheon given by Mr. Hoover to present and past members of the Board of Award, preceding medalists, and presidents and secretaries of the American societies of Civil, Mining and Metallurgical, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineers. The presentation party of forty engineers which gathered at the White House, from all parts of the United States, was made up of past presidents of the four senior national engineering societies that established the John Fritz Medal and included five men who had received the medal in previous years. These former medalists were Edward Dean Adams, J. J. Carty, J. Waldo Smith, Elmer A. Sperry and Ambrose Swasey. This medal is the highest honor bestowed by these four national engineering societies, having a membership of 60,000. It is awarded not oftener than annually for "notable scientific or industrial achievement, without restriction on account of nationality or sex." In accordance with custom, the award to Mr. Hoover was made tentatively and without announcement in October, 1927, and was formally con- firmed and announced one year later.

Jan 1, 1929

By Herbert Hoover

THE time has arrived in our national development when we must have- a definite national- program in the development of our great engineering problems. Our rail and water transport, our water supplies for irrigation, our reclamation, the provision of future&apos; fuel resources, the development and distribution of electrical power, all &apos;cry out for some broad-visioned national guidance. We must create a national engineering sense of provision for the nation as a whole. If we are to develop this national sense of engineering wand its relations to our great human problems, it must receive the advocacy of such institutions as this. We, together with our sister engineering societies, represent the engineers of the United States. It is our duty as citizens to give voice to those critical matters of national policy which our daily contact with this, the fundamentally constructive profession, illuminates to us. Just as our medical associations voice the necessity of -safeguards to national health; as the bar associations of safeguards to our judiciary, so the engineers should exert themselves in our national engineering policies. We have none; but we need some, or the next generation will face a lower instead of a higher standard of living than ours.

Jan 1, 1920

By Thomas M. Drown

In experimenting in connection with Mr. P. W. Shimer (now chemist of the Thomas Iron Company, Hokendauqua, Pa.) on methods for the determination of silicon in pig iron, in order to find one which should be accurate and yet give results in a few hours, I have adopted the following procedure, which, as far as my experience goes, leaves nothing to be desired. About one gram of pig iron or steel is treated in a platinum or porcelain dish with 25 cubic centimeters of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1, 2). When action has ceased, 25 to 30 cubic centimeters of dilute sulphuric acid (one of acid and three of water) are added, and heat applied until the nitric acid is nearly or quite driven off. The heat of a water-bath is sufficient, though the process may be hastened by heating higher on a sand-bath. Water is then cautiously added (as soon as the free sulphuric acid is sufficiently cool) and the contents of the dish heated until the crystals of ferric sulphate are completely dissolved. The solution is then filtered as hot as possible, the residue washed first with hot water, then with 25 to 30 cubic centimeters of hydrochloric acid (sp. gr. 1, 12), and finally with hot water. After drying and igniting, the silica will be found to be snow-white and granular. The following are some results obtained by this method compared

Jan 1, 1879

By A. M. Gaudin, F. W. Bowdish

MINERAL dressing is an industrial art concerned with the treatment and separation of solids suspended in fluids. Knowledge and evaluation of the area of solid-fluid interface is important in all cases except those involving only large pieces of solid. In fact, many problems relating to comminution, to flotation, to thickening and classification, could be dealt with more rationally if the interfacial area were known. A number of methods have been proposed for the measurement of the surface of certain finely divided solids. Among them are methods using rate of dissolution of the solid,7 its magnetic remanence,3 the turbidity of its suspension,8 and the character of the size distribution of the material.9 The first two are limited to one mineralogical species per sample; the third has certain optical limitations, especially for mineral mixtures, and the fourth is based on an extrapolation of uncertain validity. The need of a better and more general method of surface determination has long been felt, therefore. The method of P. H. Emmett,4 based upon the low-temperature adsorption of vapors, appears to fulfill this need. This method consists in determining the amount of nitrogen that is adsorbed by a given sample of solid at the temperature of boiling nitrogen. The more surface there is on the solid-both internal and external-the more nitrogen is abstracted. In actual operation, the method is somewhat less simple than has been stated so far, in that the nitrogen is adsorbed in an incomplete layer, the completeness and thickness of the layer being related to the pressure of the nitrogen in contact with the sample .2 This circumstance makes it necessary to determine the nitrogen adsorption for three or more values of the nitrogen pressure. APPARATUS In the Richards Mineral Dressing Laboratories an Emmett apparatus has been built and tested (Figs. 1 and 2). A mechanical vacuum pump B and a mercury diffusion pump A work in series to give a high vacuum. The sample, placed in bulb D, can be evacuated by this pump train by suitable operation of the stopcocks in the glass tubing that connects the various parts of the apparatus. C is a McLeod gauge, used to ascertain the order of magnitude of the vacuum obtained, and not for accurate pressure measurements. Pressure measurements are made in the mercury manometer F and gas-volume measurements in the gas burette E. Gases are stored in flasks L (nitrogen) and K (helium), arranged so that definite quantities of these gases can be introduced into

Jan 1, 1944

By A. W. Bitner, A. W. Asman

An analysis is made of three different types of section production units that represent the manner in which most of the nation&apos;s bituminous coal is produced. The general delays and production characteristics of these sections are presented along with a method for evaluating section performance based on actual and theoretical production characteristics. THE forerunner of the modern mechanical loading machine first entered the mines in 1890—a Stanley header with a conveyor. Since then progress has been substantial, both in the design and application of mechanized production units. Mechanization is almost a necessity for survival in the economy of today. In this paper an analysis is made of three types of sections, and a method for evaluating section performance based on present production characteristics and theoretical characteristics is presented. In mechanical loading mining sections the loading machine is the unit directly responsible for production. If the face preparation units provide a plentiful supply of properly prepared coal and the transportation system is coordinated and adequate, the loader will be idle a minimum of time. If either of the above do not perform adequately or other delays occur, the effect on production will be reflected in the performance of the loading machine. Therefore, attention is focused on the loading machine and factors that affect the overall performance of the production unit. Three complete mechanized production units are presented for analysis: A track section, a trackless section using battery-powered shuttle cars, and a trackless section using cable-reel shuttle cars. These particular sections were chosen for the following reasons: 1—The daily tonnage and mining conditions are approximately the same. 2— Production in each is 10 to 20 pct above the daily average. 3—The production characteristics and delays are average and typical. 4—They represent the manner in which the most of the nation&apos;s bituminous coal is produced. A. W. ASMAN, and A. W. BITNER, Members AIME, are Chief, and Research Assistant, respectively, Div. of Mining, The Pennsylvania State College, State College, Pa. Discussion on this paper, TP 3140F, may be sent to AIME by Oct. 31, 1951. Manuscript, Feb. 22, 1951. St. Louis Meeting, February 1951. Section A Fig. 1 is a layout for the track mining section showing the development to date, the projected plan and the cuts loaded on the shift studied. The seam mined averages 96 in. in thickness with a fireclay bottom and a roof of 10 in. of drawslate topped by sandstone. The mineability is considered good, and roof support is not a difficult problem. Two locomotives are used in the section to minimize the losses occurred in trip changing. The places are driven 20 ft wide, and the crosscuts are angled to permit fast tramming of the equipment. Table I lists the equipment and labor that make up the section. ANALYSIS Production Characteristics: The average loading rate for eight loading machines studied of this type is 1.81 tons per min. This one at 2.78 is considerably above average.

Jan 1, 1952

By W. Hurst

The authors of this paper, in substituting values in a material balance equation associated with a gas reserve and a water drive, cannot find sustainment of what the gas in place should be; therefore, their conclusion is that this type of problem dealing with gas reservoirs is insoluble. They have introduced the word, "cybernetics," based on the work of Norbert Wiener, that further extends this line of reasoning, namely, to the effect that the system is a "black box", and that the gas reservoir and aquifer can take on infinite aspects &apos;based upon their past performance, to quote the authors. The inference is that this black box is an unknown. which permits in computer programming to subscribe as many variables as possible to observe by adjustment of one to another those combinations of conditions that fit field behavior. This may satisfy those in this discipline whose dedication is to programming, but to the others this is a comparison to the rationalization of the combinational results of the throwing of dice—a probability procedure. In reservoir engineering we are more direct. We learn from the examination of individual we&apos;ll and field data exactly what is in this black box. I now come to the impasse that has confronted these authors in their machine calculations. In this I have reproduced from their own production data (Tables 1 and 2 of their paper) pressure vs cumulative gas produced. shown as Figs. D-1 through D-5. A perusal of any of these five plots, for the corresponding fields in the Po Valley, shows the straight-line relation of pressure vs gas produced, evidencing pressure depletion. The point I make is that in their fundamental production data, there is no variance from a straight line that can support a water drive.