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By Hans D. Gougar

To meet an increasing demand for minerals, mining operations are moving to ever more remote regions. The lack of a local energy supply and infrastructure, coupled with social and regulatory demands for lowered environmental impact of mining operations, presents an opportunity for a seemingly unlikely competitor ? a nuclear power plant. The Modular Pebble Bed Reactor concept, currently in various stages of research and development around the world, offers a high degree of reliability and safety with minimal consequences for the local or global environment. The passive safety features of this design eliminate the need for the extensive active safety systems that add significantly to the cost of current water-cooled reactors. With the MPBR, as with all nuclear plants, there are no appreciable quantities of waste products released to the environment during normal operations. In contrast with conventional reactor designs, the MPBR would also remain radiologically safe even under the most severe abnormal circumstances. The key to the design is the fuel element. Enriched uranium microspheres are coated with various layers of pyrolytic carbons and silicon carbide to form a highly-temperature resistant particle that effectively retains all fission products. These particles are mixed with graphite and formed into 6 cm pebbles. A randomly packed vessel of such pebbles forms the reactor core through which helium is circulated as a coolant. Computer models and tests performed on actual pebble bed reactors confirm that fuel failure temperatures are not reached even during the most severe conceivable loss of coolant accident. The reactor drives a gas turbine cycle with resulting efficiencies as high as 48%, comparable to natural gas-fired units. The low price of uranium fuel and low maintenance requirements translates into competitive operating costs. However, high capital costs prevent the MPBR from competing with natural gas in most markets. In remote applications where no fossil supplies are readily available, the playing field is more level. This paper summarizes the features of two of the more promising candidates for remote applications and discusses the strengths of the MPBR from the perspectives of fuel supply and environmental impact.

May 1, 2002

By T. R. Hughes

How do you fit a processing plant underground with minimal change to mine infrastructure and yet maintain economic recovery, operability and maintainability? By combining fine crushing, continuous-gravity recovery and flotation. A modular, transportable processing plant has been designed that is capable of being installed in underground drives/drifts or on the surface. The Python processing plants have been designed to treat 20 or 50 tons per hour of ore to a particle size of approximately 500 µm and recover gold and sulfides into the concentrate. The plant is only three meters wide (including bolt-on platforms) and can be installed on a 1:50 slope, making for very simple installation. Test work carried out by Gekko Systems Pty. Ltd. has indicated that up to 50% of ores tested to date would achieve gold recovery rates of over 90% using this method. The projected benefits of this strategy are numerous and include low overall capital and operating cost, significantly less power consumption compared with traditional milling circuits and low environmental footprint.

Jan 1, 2010

By Fabiano Soares

Strand guide rolls in continuous casters are crucial components for guaranteeing an optimum process for the production of high-quality steel grades. The properties of these rolls greatly influence the quality of the slab produced. The most commonly used designs so far have been the axle roll and the solid roll. A quite new roll concept is the STEC-Roll®. It combines the advantages of the axle roll with those of the solid roll. This paper explains the development of this roll type and shows the current design. The characteristics of the STEC-Roll® are presented in greater detail and are underlined by a number of simulation results. Beside the design itself, the benefits for casting and maintenance are explained, including for example the easy assembly and dismantling or the use of the roll for dry casting. A brief examination is made of the TCO for the STEC-Roll® and an estimation is provided of the exchangeability of this roll. To conclude, an overview on the current applications is presented.

Aug 17, 2017

By AIME AIME

DREAMS do come true at times, although it is evidently better to believe in engineers than to "believe in fairies" if most dreams are to be translated into fact. It was a fine dream that David H. Moffat had when he projected a railway directly west from Denver; a dream of opening a new empire in northwestern Colorado, and of quickening transportation from the Middle West to the Pacific slope. But Moffat had been a miner and had become a banker. He knew that dreams, untranslated into works, benefit no one and pleasure only the dreamer, so he employed an engineer, H. A. Sumner, to study and plan the route to be followed by the rails. Previous main lines had run to the north, the Union Pacific, or the south, the Santa Fe. The Denver and Rio Grande, it is true, wriggled its way bravely across Colorado but, in order to reach a point 74 miles in an airline west of- Denver, travelled 281 miles following two canyons and crossing Tennessee Pass at 10,240 ft. Valuable as such a road is, it could never accomplish what Moffat had in mind. It was known that no low pass could be found directly west of Denver but up to 9000 ft. the topog-

Jan 1, 1925

By P Hayes, D Fadhlurrahman

Molten slags, fluxes and salts play key roles in a wide range of the high temperature industrial process applications, including metals production, refining and recycling, metal manufacturing processes, electrochemical metal production cells, batteries, and efficient heat transfer media. Recognising the importance and significance of fundamental scientific knowledge of these systems, the International MOLTEN Conference series was established to provide a forum to bring together leading academic researchers and industrial engineers to present and discuss the latest scientific ideas and findings, and their application in their respective fields. This article presents an analysis of the research carried out in this field over time in terms of the number of journal articles, fields and slag systems studied and geographical origin of the research.

Jun 19, 2024

By David H. Carlson

The paper presents background information including data on diesel exhaust pollutants, amounts produced and standards, a desscription of mine characteristics that affect air monitoring techniques and a review of portable measurement techniques and instruments for gas and particulate matter sampling. A general review of the laboratory and field research being conducted at Michigan Technological University in the area of diesel emissions is presented. The facilities involved with this research are also described. These are the Experimental Mine, the diesel dilution tunnel test cell, the Mine Air Monitoring Lab (MAML), the portable instruments and the production mines used.

Jan 1, 1979

By H. L. Noblitt, Pauline Moyd, Louis Moyd

The deposit, which forms a ridge -adjacent to the York river, in Mont-eagle township, is held by Monteagle Minerals Limited, of Toronto. The ore is in a Precambrian gneiss which is composed of nepheline, scapolite, andesine and microcline feldspars, muscovite and biotite micas, and -corundum. The major orebody is tabular and is exposed for 1,200 feet along the crest of the ridge. It aver-ages about 90 feet in thickness, dips at about 70°, and was intersected by drilling at a vertical depth of 600 feet. The deposit was prospected for corundum in the early 1900's. Recent exploration was undertaken to deter-mine its potential as a source of high-alumina ceramic material, with by-product corundum and white mica. The program included prospecting, mapping, trenching, diamond drilling, bulk sampling, beneficiation research, a large-scale beneficiation test, product evaluation, market investigations, and plant design. Reserves, to a depth of about 300 feet, are estimated at about 3 million tons.

Jan 1, 1962

This address was delivered at the Annual Conference Presidential Dinner held in Sydney on 11 July 1988.The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy brings together, voluntarily, people with a professional interest in the disciplines and skills which are employed in the mineral industry, and in relation to that industry.We come together because we have a mutual interest in improving what is done by the mineral industry, in all its aspects. It is this sense of continuing improvement, of doing better, of doing as well as we can, as our knowledge and skills improve, that unites us in creating and fostering a professional association of likeminded people.We know from our professional training and experience that enormous progress has been made, at an ever-increasing rate, in the mineral industry, particularly this century. We know that the mineral industry has played a very major role in providing the means by which so many more people survive to live longer, healthier ,and more interesting lives, than ever before. Indeed, together with the oil and gas industry, which is an integral part of the mineral industry but has achieved its own commercial distinction, it is fair to claim that the mineral industry has played the major role in providing the means for the advancement of the human, quality of life.We do not need to make any great claims on human society in consequence of our statement of these contributions. The facts, for those who are aware of them, speak for themselves. Our more modest interest, as members of our professional association, is to look to the future, while conscious of our heritage as a guide to what more might be done, in that future.We certainly do not claim that this indisputable contribution made to human welfare by the mineral industry gives us some moral position of superiority from which to claim greater support or understanding from the wider community of people.On the other hand we know that as members of the mineral industry we have a responsibility to do what we can to help other people to be aware of, and to understand the significance of, those facts which will only speak for themselves if we take the trouble to make them known. And we have a number of organisations. The Institute itself, The Australian Mining Industry Council, the various State Chambers of Mines, the industrial relations body, The Australian Mines and Metals Association, and others, each of which in its own way endeavours to add strength to the individual efforts which we each should make.We may look at these facts about our mineral industry as simple dry statistics, even with their undoubtedly improving trends, or we can see them, and portray them to others, as expressing something which is much more. We can portray them as expressing the outcomes of our professional determination to strive to do better, whatever it i,s we find ourselves doing in this mineralindustry.We may seek to describe our efforts as being in pursuit of excellence, or by other such high-sounding phrases, but I prefer to describe those efforts as simply our strivings to make everything we do better next time-much as the dedicated golfer tries to do, but with, may I suggest, more evident success achieved in the mineral industry; which is one reason why I don't try to play golf.May I suggest to you that trying to do better, is very simply the true basis of professionalism? We are trained and practised to see the opportunity for improvement-not to be static in a world which we know is changing so rapidly in every aspect around us. We must be dynamic, which means optimistic, about improving the world in which we find ourselves.

Jan 1, 1988

By John L. Bolles

The Phelps Dodge Corporation's Morenci Concentrator includes facilities for coarse crushing, fine crushing, grinding, flotation, tailing, disposal, concentrate filtering, and drying. The Morenci Concentrator daily throughput is in excess of 60, 000 tons. The ore milled is mainly a medium-hard monzonite porphyry in which the principal sulfide minerals are chalcocite and pyrite. The ore is transported by rail from the Open Pit Mine to the primary crushing plant located at the concentrator site. Ore is side-dumped from 80¬ton railroad cars into a sixty-inch gyratory crusher. The ore is then conveyed to a. 12, 000 ton coarse ore storage bin. Fine crushing is accomplished by four parallel lines of conventionally stacked crushers in open circuit. Each unit consists of one seven-foot standard cone followed by two seven-foot shortheads. Ti% product of the fine crushing plant is distributed by two tripper cars across a fine ore storage bin. The crushed ore is then fed by variable speed belt feeders into thirty parallel, single stage, closed circuit grinding units. Each of the 30 grinding units consists of one 6' x 23' conditioning drum, one 10' x 10' ha l mill and two 54" duplex spiral classifiers as principal equipment. The dry ore is fed into the conditioning drum with water to dilute the ore to a slurry of approximately 78% solids by weight. An aqueous solution of ammonium sulfide is also added to the conditioning drum. The ammonium sulfide primarily acts as a sulfidizing agent. The ore slurry containing the naturally occurring sulfide copper minerals and the sulfidized copper minerals discharges into the feed scoop box of the ball mill, where milk of lime, collector and-.dilution water are added. The ball mill product slurry is gravity fed: to the classifier pool where water is added to obtain the desired classifier overflow product

Jan 1, 1977

By Roman Y. Poderny, Vladimir V. Rjevskii

In the USSR, the Moscow Institute of Radio Electronics tronics and Mining Electro-Mechanics (MIRGEM) has started what it hopes will become a nationwide movement to educate mining students in the precise specialties that industry has come to require. Courses for mining engineers, the MIRGEM faculty proposes, should dovetail as exactly as possible with specific jobs available in the mining profession. Acting upon this thesis, MIRGEM revised its own curriculum in 1962 and has since presented an over-all plan for Soviet mining education before two mining school conferences as well as the Ministry of Higher Education and a number of major Soviet industrial ministries. The plan was universally approved with some suggested revisions. SOVIET MINING EDUCATION TODAY At present, mining education in the Soviet Union covers the exploitation of solid minerals and raw materials, including coal as well as ferrous and nonferrous metals. The extraction, storage, and refining of oil and gas is treated as a separate discipline. In all, there are 33 Soviet universities and institutes that train mining engineers for careers in the industrial, research and educational fields.

Jan 9, 1966

By Edward D. Peters

IT frequently occurs in the establishment of reduction works, in an entirely new and untried mining district, that the metallurgist in charge finds considerable difficulty in determining the process best adapted to the ores which he receives for treatment. At the first glance it would seem easy enough to decide what style of furnace is best adapted for beneficiating any one class of minerals. If the ore possessed a quartzose gangue and was comparatively free from base metals, while salt could be obtained at a reasonable price, one would naturally resort to a chloridizing roasting, and pan or barrel amalgamation for the extraction of its silver contents. If galena or carbonate of lead was the prevailing mineral, and charcoal could be obtained at moderate figures, the blast-furnace would beneficiate the ores most advantageously. But if, as is usually the case in Colorado, the ores consisted of an intimate mixture of galena, zinc-blende, copper-pyrites, and noble silver minerals, associated with an overwhelming mass of siliceous heavy spar, or limestone gangue, the common reverberatory furnace can be used to the greatest advantage; and, although the product is only a copper matte, I do not hesitate to affirm that it can be treated, and the silver, gold, and copper produced at nearly the same price for which silver and lead can be separated. In Germany, blast-furnaces are frequently used for this same purpose, both for argentiferous and non-argentiferous copper ores ; but any one who will take the trouble to examine the statistics of smelting at Fahlun, the Oberharz, and other Continental works of this description, will see that the expenses are far too great, and the production much too small to think of employing this method in our mining districts, where only the softest and most miserable kind of charcoal is obtainable. I propose in this paper to give an accurate account of the expenses incurred at the Mount Lincoln Smelting Works in treating the same kind of ore, and producing the same end-product in both blast and reverberatory furnaces. I have taken for comparison a favorable campaign of the blast-furnace, and a good average month's running of the reverberatory. In the blast-furnace estimate I have included the calcining and concentration of the matte produced during that campaign, as I always, when possible, concentrated the regulus made

Jan 1, 1874

By Michael N. Maltezos

"There is certainly no argument that LED lighting systems have taken a strong foothold in the lighting marketplace over the last several years. This has even proven true in the world of transportation and transit lighting, for which new LED cobra head style luminaires are replacing traditional HID cobra head luminaires on North America’s roadwaysand linear LED light fixtures are replacing conventional linear fluorescent light fixtures in North American rail transit facilities. However, LED technology has taken a while longer to penetrate the very specific market of vehicular tunnel lighting in this continent. Though both the New York/New Jersey Holland and Lincoln Tunnels have recently been retrofitted with LED lighting, and an LED Lighting RFP is currently out for Boston’s Central Artery Tunnels, very few vehicular tunnels in North America to date have been illuminated with LED light fixtures. This is largely because cost effective LED lighting, that met our typically stringent tunnel lighting standards, was until recently simply unattainable. However, with the rapid advances in LED technology over recent years, owners and specifiers of North American tunnel lighting projects have finally begun to adopt LED lighting systems as the norm. In fact, a recent Lux Fit/Yole Development “LED in Road and Street Lighting Report” stated that “LED luminaire growth will be driven firstly by tunnel lighting, and then relayed into highway, road, residential and amenity lighting applications starting in 2014.” 1 Our highways are continually becoming more congested. As a result, Provincial and State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are constantly looking for innovative ways to improve traffic flow. One way DOTs are now helping to ease congestion is by expanding the use of tunnels and long underpasses in large interchange reconstruction projects. With less available right-of-way to work with, and the high costs of maintaining elevated bridge structures over the years, it often makes more sense to “go under” (rather than over) the traffic congestion points. With the addition of these new tunnels and long underpasses comes the issue of proper illumination within these structures, for a safe and efficient driving task. DOTs use recommended lighting practices and guidelines for highway lighting, which include specific criteria for tunnels, set by either the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) or the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). However, both IESNA and AASHTO point out that these recommended practices and guidelines are not a mandate, and DOTs are free to make their own decisions about lighting criteria. Accordingly, effectively illuminating tunnels is often times a challenge. This paper will examine the key considerations of the tunnel lighting application in generalas well as what LEDs now bring to the table and how, accordingly, traditional lighting technologies will be phased out in the future illumination of tunnels."

Jan 1, 2016

By H. W. Fleming

In 1955, the results of a regional, geological interpretation of the northern portion of New Brunswick were used as a basis for selecting, for intensive exploration, three areas in which structural and stratigraphic conditions were believed to be favourable. Airborne electromagnetic work, in one of these areas, provided the justification for acquiring the Murray group. Even though the initial results were discouraging, this geological interpretation, combined with the fortuitous discovery of cop• per-bearing float, was sufficient reason for carrying out further work using geochemical methods. This work finally resulted in the discovery of the Murray massive-sulphide deposit, after about eighteen months of coordinated exploration on the property. While this deposit is a typical New Brunswick-type base-metal occurrence, extensive leaching has produced a fossil gossan that rendered it an elusive target for exploration techniques of limited penetration Full credit for localizing the target area is given to the geochemical techniques, but geophysical surveys were needed to provide the necessary

Jan 1, 1961

By James K. Richardson

Today, the enigma of the "missing man" in the metal mining industry equals, and frequently surpasses in objective importance, the problems of ore development, drilling, sampling, pumping, milling techniques, geophysical prospecting, or any one of a hundred highly technical subjects. Unfortunately, as engineers, we have confined our attentions, in the main, to the scientific phases of mineral technology, relegating our man power problems to the background. But what good has all our scientific study and preparation been if we can't get the ore mined, milled, or smelted? What has happened to our labor supply? Where is the good old miner who could timber, drill a round, lay track, or do any job underground?

Jan 1, 1949

By G. F. Joklik

Although the mineral shortages of twelve to eighteen months ago have given way to oversupply, their memory lingers on. These problems were man-made: booming demand throughout the industrial world, political and industrial unrest and the oil embargo all contributed. But in the minds of many, the shortages conjured up visions of the depletion of the world's mineral resources, a disaster that could be staved off only by drastic curbs on consumption and therefore, curbs on economic growth. A little historical research shows that fears such as this are not inventions of the 1970's. A hundred years ago, for example, the imminent exhaustion of the world's coal supplies was being predicted in Great Britain. The English economist, John Stuart Mill, who was usually more perceptive, wrote a few years earlier that "it is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object". And later there was Franklin Roosevelt who said in 1932, "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions, it is not overbuilt". His concern, in other words, was not with the discovery and exploitation of new natural resources, but with the administration of known resources and with seeking foreign markets for surplus production. In light of copper prices at the time -- just under 6¢ a pound -- that was understandable. These instances illustrate how, throughout the world's industrial history, concern about surpluses of raw materials has alternated with alarm about the adequacy of supplies and with calls for restricting growth.

Jan 1, 1975

By Circadian Technologies

Alertness levels naturally fluctuate during the day and night Basic functions ??digestion, body temperature ? follow predictable 24-hour patterns Adjustment to night work creates health challenges for shiftworkers Performance decreases during overnight and post-lunch dip hours Fatigue supercedes training & experience Fatigue is a major cause of human error

Jan 1, 2010

By A. D. Wilkinson

A CROSS-SECTION of the converter aisle through one of the converters and reverberatories is shown in Fig. 5. The aisle is 280 ft. long by 60, ft. wide by 681 ft. to the roof trusse, which have a 63-ft. span and are us )ported by steel columns spaced at 2b-ft. centers. Two 80-ton electric trails, supplied by the Welman Smith .Owen Engineering Co., with 20-ton auxiliary lifts, serve this building. Matte shells and converter-slag shells are dumped into heavily con¬structed flat-bottom bins located on the south side of the converter aisle and 1.0 ft. above the floor. The material is broken by ball and by hand, shoveled off into ladles for unloading on to the reverberatory charge floor, and charged into the furnace as previously mentioned.

Jan 1, 1934

By A. F. Buckham

Introduction Several basins of the Nanaimo series, a group of coal-bearing sedimentary rocks of Upper Cretaceous age, underlie parts of Vancouver island and the adjacent gulf islands. One, the Nanaimo basin, occurs on the southern half of the west shore of the gulf of Georgia. About fifty square miles at the north end of this basin are known to be underlain by productive coal seams, this area being known as the Nanaimo coal field. Coal has been mined from two horizons- that of the Wellington seam, fairly low in the series, and that of the Newcastle and Douglas seams, about the middle of the series. Coal has been mined here since the fall of 1852. About fifty million tons have been produced, almost half the total production of British Columbia. About seventy-two years ago, James Richardson of the Geological Survey made a reconnaissance of the coal measures on Vancouver island, and thirty-five years ago C. H. Clapp mapped and reported on most of the Nanaimo coal field. Twenty-four years ago, J. D. MacKenzie extended the work to those areas not mapped by Clapp. MacKenzie died before the results of his work could be published, but did issue a revised estimate of the Goal Resources of Southern Vancouver Island. Work by the present writer is a further contribution by the Geological Survey to knowledge of the island coal measures. Having spent more time in the field, and having had more data at his disposal than were available to his predecessors, the writer has been able to throw additional light on the Nanaimo, and other, coal fields on Vancouver island. He is indebted to Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir), Limited, and to its officials for access to much valuable information in their possession.

Jan 1, 1947

By J. F. Henderson

"IntroductionTHE National Advisory Committee on Research in the Geological Sciences was set up by the Privy Council of Canada in 1949. It was set up because you, the Geology Division of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, asked that it be set up. The Committee is, therefore, to a consider-able degree, your offspring. In the role of good parents you, of the Geological Division of the C.I.M., should be interested in the progress of your progeny. How is the Committee organized? What has it recommended? What has it accomplished? On behalf of the National Advisory Committee, that is what I want to tell you about this afternoon.HistoryYou will remember that, in 1946, the Geology Division of the C.I.M. set up a Committee on Geological Research. This Committee, under the Chairmanship of Dr. J. E. HAWLEY, found ""that there is no national organization interested in surveying, co-ordinating, and implementing with financial help, fundamental and much needed geological research. Accordingly, the first and most necessary step to put the geological sciences in Canada on a proper footing .is the recommendation that a National Advisory Committee on Research in the Geological Sciences be formed"" (l).This recommendation was endorsed •by the President and Council of the C.I.M. in 1947 and submitted to the Minister of Mines and Resources."

Jan 1, 1952

By J. D. A. Morrow

TO my mind the National Bituminous Coal Act so far has proved one of the unhappiest experiences that has ever befallen the bituminous coal operators of the United States. Viewed in the light of its ugly consequences everyone should recognize this measure for what it is -a weird thing as unreal as a page from "Alice in Wonderland." Indeed it might be another stanza to the tale of the Walrus and the Carpenter, with the coal operators in the role of the unfortunate oysters who were taken on that memorable ramble. It is time that coal producers open their eyes, jerk themselves out of any lingering hypnotic optimism about the price-fixing provisions of this law, demand the repeal of these corroding clauses, and then set about remedying as best they can the disastrous effects of this retromingent scheme to regulate the coal business.

Jan 1, 1939