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By H. R. Banks

SHORTLY after the commencement of operations at the Sullivan concentrator, the use of a pilot table was instituted in order to present a visual control of various products by showing the amount of galena still present in the tailing from several stages of flotation. Among the products so treated, the final tailing was later included. It was sratifying to note that very little free galena was escaping, but a fine streak o a whitish mineral appeared at the concentrate zone. This mineral was identified as cassiterite. The amount was small and the newly recognized component in an already complex ore was considered primarily as of academic interest. However, the problem of recovering a usable metal was intriguing and, as opportunity presented itself in temporary lulls in research on Sullivan and other ores, the concentration of tin was a useful 'bit of knitting' to go on with. It was recognized from the start that the bulk of the mill tailing would have to be floated and the residue subjected to gravity treatment. Since one of the predominating features of Sullivan concentration operation has been the necessity of fine grinding, the problem of gravity concentration was thereby intensified. Several batch runs were made, and sufficient pulp was treated to produce about one ton of final tin concentrate assaying 67 percent tin. The overall recovery was under 30 percent and the estimated profit at full tonnage was only marginal. Testing was resumed several years later, when the price of tin again appeared attractive, in an attempt to develop a more compact plant with better recovery of tin. The weakness of the original plan of concentration was the large number of tables required to treat a feed so low in tin.

Jan 1, 1941

By Rclssell Gibson, F. S. Turneaure

The tin deposit of Monserrat; Bolivia, consists of one major vein 1600 m in length. The ore is unusual because of the notable quantity of teallite, even though cassiterite is the principal tin mineral. The deposit, formed at shallow depth under a wide range in temperature, may be classed as xenothermal. Polished sections reveal a complex history of replacement, with low-temperature minerals deposited before high-temperature minerals.

Jan 1, 1950

By FREDERICK MCAKCCOY

THE production of tin from Mexico has never reached the point of being considered a national industry, but the distribution of tin ores is so widespread that there are possibilities that one day it may become of importance. Of the twenty-seven states of the Republic, tin claims have been taken up in sixteen. In all there had been taken up to the end of 1926, two hundred and twenty-five claims, of a total area of about 7400 acres. The first historical mention of tin in the Americas is found in a letter of Cortez to the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, of Spain, which is as follows: Speaking of his manufacture of some small cannon, he says: "For these reasons I took considerable pains to get copper from some provinces of this country, and bought it at a high price in order to get it quicker.

Jan 1, 1929

By MARSHALL D. DRAPER

CHINA is one of the large producers of the world's tin. About 95 per cent of the total Chinese production comes from the Kotchiu district in the southern part of the province of Yunnan. Yunnan occupies the southwestern part of China, bordering on Burma,. Siam and. French Indo-China. From the British port of Hong Kong,' small steamers sail southwest at about four-day intervals, reaching Haiphong in French Indo-China in two or three days. This, one of the principal ports in Indo-China, is a modern French city of some 50,000 population which, with its tropical surroundings, has much natural beauty. It is a few miles from the sea on the Red River, which has its source in China. Both at Haiphong and Hanoi, the capital of Indo-China, sixty-three miles north of Haiphong and also on' the Red River, there are foundries, shipyards, machine shops, cement and brick plants and various similar industries.

Jan 1, 1931

By MARSHALL D. DRAPER

THERE are said to be about 150 operating companies in Kotchiu, most of these being small, corresponding in degree to lessees in western mines in the United States. Of the total number there are probably forty large companies having their own smelting plants equipped with one or two furnaces, slag crushing plant and other accessory equipment. A few plants, not more than ten, do custom smelting. There are in all about fifty smelting plants in Kotchiu. With little variation, the equipment and methods are the same. The plant usually consists of two furnaces, one being in operation while the other is being relined 01- re- paired. An adjoining house contains one or more of the large buffalo-drawn Chilean mills for crushing slag. A few houses for the working coolies, with more pretentious ones for the owners, complete the establishment, the whole being surrounded by a compound wall 8 ft. high.

Jan 1, 1931

By R. S. Handy

AT THE TIME of my first visit to Bolivia in 1927 the tin-mining industry was prosperous, the tin price at London being more than £300 per long ton of tin, and the operators were making every effort to bring their plants up to the very highest point of capacity as well as of efficiency. Any device or piece of equipment or method that gave promise of increasing production was welcomed regardless of the cost, and the plants were being modernized as rapidly as human ingenuity could make it possible. At the time of my second visit in 1932, however, conditions had changed materially. The price of tin had fallen to a little over £100 but costs had not decreased anywhere in proportion and operators were at their wit's end to cut the operating losses that were everywhere prevalent. Charles L. Bradbury, manager of the Empresa Minera de Huanuni, at Huanuni, Bolivia, had been recently called from Mexico to make all analysis of the situation and to attempt to work out a remedy for the economic conditions that threatened to close the mine. His analysis brought out the following points:

Jan 1, 1938

By Ilija Ilic

Recovery of tin from tinplate and production of good-quality detinned-plate for further processing in ironworks has been the subject of interest for many years. Tinplates are mostly used for production of tin containers for food industry and consumer goods. The research carried out so far included determination of the parameters of dissolution of tin from tinplates by alkaline solution of NaOH and electrochemical recovery of tin from the alkaline solutions. During leaching, NaNO3 and methanitrobenzoic acid (MNBA) as oxidants were studied. By leaching the waste tinplate which contains 0.31 % of tin with a solution of 1.12 mol/dm3 NaOH, 0.26 mol/dm3 Na2CO3 and 0.09 mol/dm3 MNBA at temperature of 70°C for 60 mm, a degree of tin leaching of 97 % was attained. MNBA facilitates oxidation of Sn2+ into Sn4+ suitable for obtaining compact, and not spongy, Sn cathode deposit, as it was the ease earlier. Recovery of tin by electrolysis from solutions obtained by leaching was studied to determine the effect of electrolyte composition on the quality of cathode deposit and the degree of electric current efficiency. Experimental results obtained at a laboratory level were checked on an enlarged laboratory set up where continuos leaching of tin from waste tinplate and its electrolytic recovery from the solution obtained were carried out. The experimental set-up -operated under semi-industrial conditions, and about 500 kg of waste tinplate was processed yielding about 1.160 kg of tin (99 % Sn).

Jan 1, 2000

By J. L. Johnson

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, investigated recovery of concentrates containing tin, tantalum, and niobium from the Kougarok deposit on the Seward Peninsula, AK. To date, 25 million lb of tin has been delineated in occurrences containing 0.36 to 1.32 pct Sn, and the resource potential is estimated to be as high as 25 million short tons at average grades of 0.75 pct Sn, 0.025 pct Ta, and 0,025 pct Nb. Deslimed ore was concentrated to 54 pct Sn, 0.3 pct Ta, and 0.3 pct Nb, with recoveries of 74 pct Sn and 44 pct Ta/Nb using a Humphrey's* spiral followed by a Deister shaking table. Tin values in the slimes were upgraded to a 5-pct-Sn concentrate using a Bartles-Mozley separator followed by flotation. The 5- pct-Sn was further upgraded by fuming to give a concentrate containing approximately 60 pct Sn. The recovery of the two products combined was 80 pct Sn and 46 pct Ta/Nb, A flowsheet with mill-design parameters resulted from the metallurgical testing. An economic analysis was made based on the proposed process.

Jan 1, 1990

This study of the tin-tungsten ore of the Shepherd and Murphy Mine, in central northern Tasmania, was originally undertaken at the request of the Moina Tungsten-Tin Mining Co., N.L., as part of the research programme of the Mineragraphic Investigations Section of the C.S.I.R.O. It is based on the examination of a suite of specimens supplied by the management, supplemented by a more extensive collection and observations made by the author during a short visit to the mine in October, 1956.The Shepherd and Murphy Mine is at Moina, 36 miles S.W. of Devonport and 22 miles from Sheffield, the nearest railway station. It was worked almost· continuously from 1893 to 1919, when a fire destroyed the mill; to that date it had produced concentrates to the value of £141,000. After a long period of idleness, the mine was re-opened by the present company, but it has been announced recently that unfavourable market conditions have again forced closure.GENERAL GEOLOGYThe mine is on a deeply dissected plateau, about 2,500 ft. above sea level; it lies between the Iris and the Forth Rivers, whose valleys are deep gorges cut to about 400 to 600 ft. above sea level. From Moina westwards to the Iris River, a limestone regarded as part of the Gordon River Group, of Ordovician age, conformably overlies a sandstone containing tubicolar casts which are circular in cross section, half an inch in diameter and up to two feet long, and which resemble marine worm burrows (Elliston, 1953).

Jan 1, 1958

"With a total value to date of well over $200,000,000.00 for its ore production, the Tintic mining district, which is about 100 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, ranks as one of the three main ore producing areas of Utah. In it are located the biggest silver mines of the country, silver having been the chief metal produced in the camp since its start. Tintic's silver production to date has a total value of over $ 100,000,000, approximately half of the value of the camp's ore production, the balance being roughly divided among lead, gold and copper.Discovery of the camp was made in the late sixties. Lack of transportation and ore reduction facilities delayed extensive development of the area for nearly a decade.In recent years Tintic's ore production has ranged from 350,000 to 400,000 tons annually. In 1 924 the camp produced one-eighth of the silver produced in the nation with an output of 7,729,700 ounces. Its lead production was 77,765,000 pounds and its gold production 26,285 ounces.The known mineralized area of the district is found in a broad syncline striking north and south. The west limb plunges sharply and extends for a distance on its dip of approximately one and a half miles to the trough. The east limb raises gently through a distance of about two miles to the east limit of known mineralization. This general structure is broken by local faulting throughout the district, the local structural conditions playing an important part in the ore deposition. The north end of the fold is obscured by a rhyolite flow and the south end stops against a monzonite stock."

Jan 1, 1925

By W. Gutmannsbauer

Thin films of TiO2 nanoparticles have been prepared by different reactive deposition methods, such as electron evaporation, ion plating and ion beam sputtering. Many properties especially the optical properties, are strongly related to the film morphology and surface roughness. Scanning force microscopy was employed to obtain information on the surface structure of as-deposited Ti(h thin films. The influence of the deposition conditions and the film thickness on the optical and structural properties has been investigated. The as-deposited films were found to be amorphous or polycrystalline with anatase structure.

Jan 1, 1995

By Richard L. Unger

Equipment is the primary cause of injury in 11% of all mining accidents and a secondary cause in another 10%. Purchasers should select new equipment carefully to ensure that the machine incorporates good ergonomic design criteria that maximize the safety of their mine workers. One potential problem area is the workstation-the control center of the machine. Safety problems often occur when the workstation provides insufficient clearance or visibility to the operator or has controls that are difficult to reach. This is especially true for underground mines, where confined space is an issue. In reclined or stooped postures, operators will have less strength and agility and often experience reduced visibility. We have conducted and published much research in Human Factors design of mining machine workstations. This information is currently being compiled into a series of Human Factors design recommendation reports. The reposts dl cover many topics, including workstation layout, control design, seating, and visibility. Each topic has a list of basic or first principles of design. Understanding these principles is the key to designing or purchasing a workstation that is both safe and efficient. Following is a sampling of these main topics and first principles.

Aug 1, 1996

By Joseph M. Chelini

Today, the two major operating costs of rubber tired off-road equipment are diesel fuel and tires. Mine Management has minimal control over the ever accelerating diesel fuel costs. However, they can exercise control over abnormal tire costs. Fortunately, with available technology and cost analysis methods, experience shows us the outlook for controlling tire costs is encouraging. Most earthmoving operations using off-road, rubber tired haulage and support equipment have abnormally high total tire costs. These costs, utilizing Tire Information Management, have been reduced more than 30%; 20% can often be guaranteed. Management Apathy on the subject of tires in a complex mining operation perhaps can be understood, but management apathy applied to an abnormally high operating cost, of which tires are, begs for a solution.' Tires have been professionally neglected for many years in most mine operations. This is exemplified in the January, 1982 issue of Mining Engineering by Charlie Son in his article Reducing Earthmoving Tire Costs. He compared the efforts to improve diesel engine costs to the same efforts given to earthmover tires.

Jan 1, 1983

By R. B. Anderson, N. J. Sherren

The mining equipment at the Scully Mine, Wabush, consists of approximately twenty-five large haulage units, eight large dozer-loader applications and seventy other related pieces of service and maintenance equipment. This equipment is operating in sub-Arctic conditions. This pa-per presents a description of the tire maintenance procedures in use here and discusses the tire troubles that are being encountered and the methods of dealing with them.

Jan 1, 1969

By T. G. Joseph, M. Bolster, M. Curley

"High tirerim loading on haul trucks operating on rough ground frequently manifests as mechanical separations and rim base cracking caused by cyclic fatigue. This paper provides an understanding of the impact of high loads on rim component life and tire footprint, bulge, and deformation behaviour; and develops a maintenance planning tool to predict strain implications of high g loading for a given rim location. Loading tests and analyses were conducted for a tirerim arrangement under increasing load and internal tire pressure. Graphical models were developed, allowing higher g load extrapolation predictions for specific rim components.KEYWORDS g load, Mining, Model, Prediction, Rim, Strain, Tire bulge, Tire footprint, Ultra-class vehicleRÉSUMÉ L’application d’un chargement élevé sur le système pneu/jante de camions de transport rou¬lant sur des terrains accidentés se manifeste fréquemment par des séparations mécaniques et une fissure à la base de la jante engendrée par une fatigue cyclique. Cet article nous permet de mieux comprendre l’incidence de l’application de charges élevées sur la durée de vie des composantes de la jante ainsi que sur l’empreinte, la hernie et le comportement de déformation des pneus. Il développe également un outil de planification de l’entretien visant à prévoir l’incidence des contraintes en cas d’application d’un chargement g élevé sur un endroit donné de la jante. Des essais et des analyses de la charge ont été effectués pour un agencement pneu/jante soumis à une charge et une pression interne du pneu croissantes. Des modèles graphiques ont été développés, ce qui a permis d’établir des prédictions sur la base d’une extrapolation du chargement g plus élevé appliqué à des composantes spécifiques de la jante.MOTS CLÉS charge g, contrainte, empreinte du pneu, exploitation minière, hernie du pneu, jante, modèle, prédiction, véhicule ultralourdINTRODUCTION The purpose of this paper is to report on a proposed and trialed tire performance test based on data obtained from controlled testing that is used to predict the impact of high g loading on hauler rims and tires with greater accuracy. For example, for many years oil sand mining operations have expressed qualitative beliefs that an impact load of the magnitude experienced by a rim and tire arrangement is not detrimental to a rim as a stiff component; however, mining equipment components are subjected to cyclic loading where failure can result from repeated load/unload activity, truncating the peak region of a stress–strain response and resulting in fatigue failure at a stress value that is less than the peak value. The outcome reported by oil sand haul truck maintenance groups indicates they have realized that most high g impacts—such as those experienced by hauler tires and rims operating on poor ground conditions—can result in failure due to cyclic loading, where higher loads require fewer cycles for failure. This high-level loading and the resulting strain transmitted to the rim is evident in the results of the laboratory testing presented in this paper."

Jan 1, 2019

The mineral sands industry is oriented primarily toward the supply of titanium (Ti) raw materials (titanium feedstocks) for the production of titanium dioxide (TiO2) pigment and titanium metal. Titanium minerals ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene, and titanium slag and synthetic rutile are all used principally as feedstocks for the production of white TiO2 pigment. It accounts for almost 90 percent of the world?s consumption of titanium minerals. The remainder is used for the production of titanium metal, fluxes for welding rods and as a metallurgical flux in iron and steel making. Titanium dioxide pigment is produced by two alternative process routes, the sulfate process or chloride process. The bulk of the world?s titanium dioxide is derived from the mineral ilmenite, which also contains iron oxide and other minor impurities. At some mining operations, the iron present in ilmenite is removed (ilmenite beneficiation) to produce a high TiO2 feedstock (slag or synthetic rutile) typically containing between 80 percent and 95 percent TiO2. Pigment producers then further process it to produce pigment.

Jan 1, 2011

By OTTO HERRES

TITANIUM is estimated to be the ninth most plentiful element, ranking after iron, aluminum, and magnesium, and ahead of copper, lead, and zinc. Vast quantities of titanium are widespread throughout the world in ore deposits and beach sands. Before the war, processing plants were operated in England, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Russia, Australia, United States, and Japan. In spite of its widespread occurrence, however, the U. S. Department of Justice has held the titanium industry to be a world monopoly and action was taken in the Federal court during the summer of 1945 to enjoin international patent and marketing agreements and to restore free competition. Possibly the rather surprising lack of public familiarity with this industry of international importance arises from its astonishingly rapid development and growth in the strong hands of some of the greatest chemical companies in the world, including the important foreign companies, Imperial Chemical Industries (British), Montecatini (Italian), I. G. Farben (German), and Titan Kogko Kabushiki Kaisha (Japanese). The rapid growth of the titanium industry in the United States is indicated by a tenfold increase of ore imports in the 1930 to 1940 decade before the war began to affect shipments from overseas. The fact that the industry formerly derived practically all ore for chemical processing in American plants from foreign sources probably also accounts for lack of general public knowledge of titanium. In 1939, to meet the requirements of increasing demand for the white pigment. titanium dioxide, more than 250,000 tons of titanium concentrates moved to this country, principally from the Travancore coast of India where the ilmenite concentrate from the beach sand runs as high as 60 per cent in titanium dioxide. Global warfare put a stop to shipping and thus gave rise to the development of titanium mining on a substantial scale in the United States during 1941.

Jan 1, 1946

By H. V. Kinsey

"IntroductionTITANIUM is probably the most widely publicized metal today. Much has been written, both in the lay press and the technical press, about its properties and potentialities. In view of the fact that Canada possesses large quantities of titanium-bearing ore, and could conceivably become a major producer of metallic titanium, it was felt that a paper dealing mainly with the physical metallurgy of titanium would be of interest to this Institute. This paper is concerned chiefly with the useful properties of titanium and its alloys and the fundamentals governing the modification of its properties by alloying.Physical Properties of TitaniumTitanium belongs to a family of metals that have been termed 'gas sensitive' (I), because their mechanical properties are altered by certain gases which they readily absorb and retain. Other metals of this group are zirconium, hafnium, vanadium, columbium, tantalum, and chromium. Titanium has a strong affinity for oxygen and nitrogen and once it has absorbed these gases they cannot be removed either by melting in vacuum or by any degassing agent. These gases, when present in excess of about half a per cent oxygen plus nitrogen, render the metal brittle and useless as a structural material.Some of the typical physical properties of titanium are listed in Table I along with those of common structural metals for comparison."

Jan 1, 1953

By Frederick Beckett

WIDESPREAD experimentation has been conducted in recent years to devise a means of preventing intergranular corrosion in austenitic chromium-nickel steels of the 18 per cent chromium-8 per cent nickel type. Additions of titanium to these steels have been used commercially to overcome this difficulty, as advocated by Krupp of Germany, and the latest literature reference concerning improved details of this method is the article by Bain, Aborn and Rutherford.1 Extensive work by the present authors has shown columbium also to be a particularly valuable agent for inhibiting intergranular corrosion. This paper does not deal with steels that are largely or wholly aus-tenitic ; it is limited to a discussion of the results obtained through the use of titanium and columbium in plain high-chromium steels. For many years titanium has been used commercially by some steelmakers as a cleanser, and to a lesser extent as a hardener, but then in greater per-centages. The results of the work to be described disclose that titanium and columbium in proper proportions act as effective softeners in the high-chromium steels. It is well known that chromium intensifies the hardening effect of carbon in steel; it imparts pronounced air-hardening properties within a rather wide range of chromium content; it provides increased ductility in steels of given strength and hardness; and it enhances resistance to corrosion and oxidation at elevated temperatures to a marked degree. However, in applications requiring a combination of some of these valu-able properties great hardness is frequently a detriment rather than a merit. When the objective is a soft and ductile steel having optimum corrosion resistance, the producer strives for a carbon content as low as commercially practicable.

Jan 1, 1933

By V Rajakumar, S Trang

Titanium has the potential to become the third wave of light metals used in high volume applications, following on from aluminium and magnesium. These light metals have functional attributes that can meet many of the goals needed for societyÆs transition to sustainable development. CSIRO has initiated a Light Metals Flagship to focus additional R&D efforts in support of the light metals industry. The vision of the Light Metal Flagship is for Australia to lead the Light Metals Age by reducing the costs and environmental impacts through innovative technologies for these metals. Life cycle principles will be used to identify novel technology pathways for metal production and product manufacture that are more energy efficient, less capital intensive and incorporating eco-efficient material flow chains.Under the auspices of the Light Metal Flagship, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of titanium metal production was carried out with mineral sands mining of ilmenite as the starting point. Upgrading of the ilmenite to synthetic rutile by the Becher process and titanium metal production by the conventional Kroll process were the processing routes considered. Two alternative processes for titanium metal production, the FFC Cambridge process involving direct electrochemical deoxygenation of titanium dioxide, and a plasma process for producing titanium powder from titanium tetrachloride were also examined using LCA methodology and compared to the Kroll process. The environmental impacts included in the LCA were greenhouse gas emissions (Global Warming Potential, GWP) and acid rain gas emissions (Acidification Potential, AP). The Gross Energy Requirement (GER) of each process was also determined.These results for titanium, along with those from previous LCA studies by CSIRO on aluminium, magnesium, steel and stainless steel production, were used to show that despite the relatively large amounts of primary energy required for the production of these light metals, their special properties (eg corrosion resistance, strength and light weight) mean that these metals offer potential GER and GWP reductions compared to other competing materials in a number of applications, when viewed on a life cycle basis. Two applications considered in the paper are the lightweighting of motor vehicles and chemical plant equipment manufacture.

Jan 1, 2004