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By S. Gilbert, G. R. Bailey

A further evaluation of the bomb-sampling method for determining the oxygen content of liquid steel is presented. The results of this study and their close agreement with the results of an earlier evaluation confirm the conclusion that the bomb-sampling method is valid for obtaining representative samples for the determination of the oxygen content of a liquid steel bath. WHAT constitutes the most desirable procedure for obtaining a sample suitable for determining the oxygen content of a liquid steel bath has been a controversial subject for several years. In 1952 Huff, Bailey, and Richards' described a modification of the bomb-sampling technique originated by McCutcheon and Rautio.' In both the modified and original techniques, a small cast-iron or steel mold containing aluminum wire and appropriately covered is inserted into the furnace, coated with slag, and then plunged into the metal bath. Upon entering the metal, the cover melts and a sample of the steel bath enters the mold. The data presented by Huff, Bailey, and Richards' indicated that reproducible samples could be obtained by their method. Furthermore, the oxygen analyses from samples obtained by their method agreed better with those from controlled laboratory experiments than did analyses from samples obtained by methods previously suggested for sampling large liquid-metal baths. Most techniques, other than bomb-sampling, require that a sample of liquid steel be removed from the furnace in a well slagged spoon and poured into an iron mold containing aluminum or into a massive copper mold for rapid chilling. Pouring in this manner requires that the sample pass through the air. The controversy, then, is somewhat as follows: Proponents of the spoon-sampling method and similar dip-and-pour methods feel that the introduction of a cold steel mold into a molten steel bath may result in a localized boiling condition that may deplete the steel of oxygen to a significant degree in the area where the bomb is introduced. Conceivably this boil could cause results that are, on the average, too low and nonrepresentative of the bath composition. On the other hand, samples that are spooned and then poured through the air may also be nonrepresentative because of oxidation by the atmosphere. The restrictions imposed in sampling with a spoon are much more stringent than those imposed when sampling with the bomb-type mold within the furnace. The spoon sample must be taken in a well slagged spoon, a requirement that depends on the condition of the slag in the furnace. Also, the samples must be poured as quickly as possible, without shaking the spoon and without allowing slag to enter the mold. The necessity of fulfill-

Jan 1, 1955

By D. T. Van Zandt

IN the late 1920's rotary drills began to replace the churn drills in the petroleum industry, but until the middle 1940's the churn drill was the only widely accepted means of drilling large-diameter blastholes for quarry operations. The Calcite plant of the Michigan Limestone Div., U. S. Steel Corp., was one of the first to experiment with rotary drills for quarry blasthole drilling, and the first to employ compressed air on a fully rotary rig to cool the bit and raise the cuttings to the collar of the blasthole. The Calcite plant operates a limestone quarry near Rogers City, Mich., in the northern part of the lower Michigan peninsula. The formation quarried, a portion of the middle Devonian series, is the Dundee limestone, which is uniform, seldom massive, and characterized by definite bedding planes. The dip is southeast, 40 ft to the mile. Quarry faces vary from 20 to 116 ft in height. Vertical blastholes are used entirely, from three to five rows of holes being drilled parallel to the working face, spaced 18 ft apart with 18-ft burden and drilled 6 to 8 ft below shovel grade. Quarry operations coincide with the navigation season on the Great Lakes, as the bulk of the stone is transported by lake carrier. The normal operating season runs from April to December, the remaining time being devoted to stripping operations and plant and equipment maintenance. In the followirig discussion drilling rates mentioned refer to overall drilling time and include all operations such as moving from hole to hole, penetration and extraction of tools, and routine maintenance. Time consumed by such factors as power delays and major machine repair is not included in drilling time unless otherwise stated. Figures cover only operations at this one plant in the formation mentioned. Needless to say, a very different set of figures could be obtained in a different formation. However, the comparison of footage obtained with churn drills and rotary rigs in this particular formation has been used as an indication of what might be the expected performance of rotary rigs in other formations. Prior to 1950 the bulk of the blasthole drilling at the Calcite plant was done by electrically powered churn drills. Both crawler and wheel-mounted rigs were used. These machines, which mounted a 22-ft drill stem of 4½ in. diam and a spudding type of bit 2 to 4 ft long, drilled a hole of 5 ?-in. diam. Average drilling rate of these rigs in the Rogers City formation was 8 % ft per hr. In 1946 one of the first rotary blasthole drills offered to the quarry industry was put into use on an experimental basis. This machine, known as the Sullivan Model 56 blasthole drill, Fig. 1, was on 16-in. crawler pads and electrically powered at 440 v. The drill bit, a Hughes Tri-Cone roller bit of 5?-in. diam, Type OSC, was threaded into the end of the 4-in. square hollow drill rod or stem. These drill rods were 20 ft long with female threads on one end and male on the other to allow for addition of the desired number of rods for drilling holes of various depth. Rods were handled by a single drum hoist geared to the main drive motor and racked by a 30-ft derrick or mast when not in use. The cable from the hoist drum fed through a crown block on the top of the derrick back to the water swivel mounted in the top end of the drill stem in use. This cable remained attached during drilling operations and was used to hoist the tool string from the hole. Down pressure was applied to the tool string by means of a pair of 4-in. diam hydraulic cylinders acting on the drill chuck holding the drill rod. The first chuck consisted of flat jaws which gripped the flat sides of the stem. These jaws were controlled by set screws forcing them into contact with the drill stem. As these set screws had to be loosened and tightened by hand with each stroke of the hydraulic feed cylinders, there was great delay. For this reason the semi-automatic chuck was developed which automatically gripped the stem on the downward stroke but released for retraction of the hydraulic feed cylinders. Rotation was imparted to the tool string by a rotary table acting on the chuck and geared to the main drive motor through a separate gear train and clutch. A positive displacement water pump, mounted on the drill, fed water through a system of pipes and hose into the water swivel mounted on the top of the drill rod and through the rod and bit, washing the drill cuttings to the collar of the hole. Where water was scarce, provision was made to settle out the cuttings coming from the collar of the hole and re-use the water. Where water was abundant the stream coming from the hole was wasted. Drilling rate with this machine was about 20 ft per hr and bit life 1600 ft of hole. While this rate was more than twice that obtained with the churn drills employed, the problem of water supply and drill cuttings disposal rendered the machine impractical from an operating standpoint. Consequently it was used only in that part of the operation for which water was easily supplied, when the character of the formation made it least difficult to wash cuttings away from the collar of the hole. In October 1949 it was suggested that drill cuttings be removed by compressed air, long used for this purpose on pneumatic drills, and collected at the collar by suction. Thereafter, the water pump on the Sullivan 56 was replaced by a 500-cfm air compressor and a trial run made. Air pressure at

Jan 1, 1955

By R. W. Huber

Three arc-melted ingots, two of a titanium-7 percent manganese alloy and the third of unalloyed titanium, were forged and rolled into 3/4-inch plate; comparative data were obtained on these processes. The finished plate, part of which was used by the Naval Bureau of Ordnance, was tested for mechanical and other properties. These properties were correlated with sponge purity, forging technique, rolling temperature, and cooling rate from the rolling temperature. For the alloy material, transformation data were obtained, and their age-hardening characteristics were studied. The temperature-impact relationship was established for rolled sections from all three ingots. INTRODUCTION Arc-melted ingots of unalloyed titanium and a titanium-manganese alloy were fabricated into plate under closely controlled conditions by personnel of the Metals and Alloys Section, Physical Metallurgy Branch, Bureau of Mines, College Park, Md. This program was cosponsored by the Naval Bureau of Ordnance. Bureau of Mines interest lay in correlating the processing procedures with the mechanical properties of the finished plate.

Jan 1, 1955

By Benny Langston, Frank M. Stephens

Although little information is available concerning small-scale equipment for dust collection in laboratories, it is possible to adapt standard equipment for laboratory use. Dust from laboratory processes may be collected by cyclone separators, filters, electrostatic separators, scrubbers, and settling chambers. IN recent years much attention has been given to recovery, treatment, and disposal of dusts discharged into the atmosphere from operations of industry. considerable data has been accumulated on both operation and design of dust-collector equipment for commercial installations. On the other hand, there is almost no published data on design and construction of small-scale equipment to handle dust problems that arise in the ore-dressing laboratory. Dust-collection equipment such as multiclones, single-cyclones, scrubbers, chemical and mechanical filters, settling chambers, and electrostatic separators has proved its efficiency for collecting dust in industry. In the laboratory, however, the engineer is faced with the problem of collecting small quantities of dust, inexpensively, without diverting the major effort from the metallurgical problem to the problem of collecting dust produced by the process. For most applications standard dust-collection equipment is too large for use in the laboratory; however, for control of dust in large working areas it is often possible to use a standard dust collector, such as an air filter, with branch ducts to eliminate a health hazard. For example, the well-furnished sample-preparation room containing small jaw crushers, rolls, and pulverizers, in addition to the riffles and screens necessary for preparation of samples, presents a perennial source of dust. The authors' experience has shown that a combination system consisting of overhead branch ducts to the individual equipment and floor ducts with grills, where applicable, connected to a central dust collector effectively removes dust generated in preparation of samples. Fig. 1 is a sketch of a downdraft dust-collector for table installation. Similar systems can be built with floor grids. For portable equipment such as laboratory vibrating screens this type of installation with a steel grill to support the heavy load is reasonably efficient. Overhead branch ducts to individual crushing and grinding equipment, although efficient, must be carefully controlled by dampers to prevent excess loss or a change in the composition of the sample. Change in sample composition can result from excess velocity, which causes selective removal of constituents of low specific gravity. Fig. 2' shows the theoretical effect of terminal velocity on spherical particles of different specific gravities in air and water under action of gravity. Fig. 3 shows the effect of air velocity on composition of CaCO, coal mixtures. Although the entrainment of dust particles in a moving air stream is the basic mechanism by which all dust-collection equipment functions, usually intake velocity of the dust-collection system must be controlled to prevent loss of part of the sample. As an example of what may happen when excess velocities are used, a mixture of 50 pct coal and 50 pct limestone was crushed to —10 mesh and fed to a pulverizer equipped with an overhead dust-collection system. Fig. 4 shows the overhead dust-collection equipment used in this test. The pulverizer was set to give a product 95 pct —100 mesh in two stages. Velocity of air passing over the lip of the pulverizer was measured with an anemometer. After grinding, the finished product was analyzed to show the amount of calcium carbonate present. Fig. 3 shows graphically the increase in calcium carbonate as velocity through the dust-collection duct was increased. These data show that at a velocity of 1 ft per sec little if any of the coal was entrained by the overhead draft. At the maximum velocity, about 6.5 ft per sec, approximately 7 pct more coal was entrained than calcium carbonate. From an operating standpoint, this problem can be remedied easily by dampering the line to control velocity. The lowest velocity commensurate with satisfactory dust control should be used to prevent excess loss and, in some cases, selective dust loss. Collection of Dust in Laboratory Processes As in industry, the engineer desires to collect efficiently the dust produced by processes being investigated on a laboratory scale. However, in the collection of laboratory dusts he is faced with two additional problems: 1—The volumes of gas and the quantity of dust that must be recovered are small when compared with the capacity of standard dust-collector equipment, which must be scaled down in design except for collection of dust from large pilot-plant operations. 2—In addition, because of the variety of problems studied in the process laboratory, the engineer cannot design today a dust collector that will meet the conditions imposed by the processes of tomorrow. Sometimes, therefore, he must compromise collection efficiency to minimize the cost of fabrication and the amount of time diverted from the metallurgical to the dust-control problem. For collection of dust from laboratory processes a cyclone separator, filters, electrostatic separators, scrubbers, and settling chambers can usually be adapted for small-scale operations. The following

Jan 1, 1955

By B. Chalmers

THE practical importance of the phenomena of melting and freezing must have been recognized for a very long time. The difference between ice and water, for example, has had a profound influence on the history of mankind and the evolution of society. The possibility of melting a metal and allowing it to freeze in a mold of chosen shape has been an essential ingredient in our mastery of the art of shaping metals, and therefore in the evolution of the: machine age in which we find ourselves. The importance of melting and freezing, as applied to metals and alloys, has been so great, in fact, that empirical solutions have been found for the multitude of practical problems that have arisen. This approach has been so successful that relatively little attention has been directed to arriving at an understanding of the fundamentals of the processes. But metallurgy has come to a stage at which we may expect that some, at least, of the more complex problems that have not yet been solved (or perhaps even recognized) may be handled more effectively by scientific study, theoretical understanding, and logical experimentation than by trial and error. In this lecture, therefore, I propose to describe in outline what I think really happens when a metal freezes. In doing so I hope to explain many of the phenomena which have been observed, and in particular to account for the structures that are obtained in actual ingots and castings. The basic problem, to which this lecture represents a tentative partial answer, is this: a mass of metal, containing known proportions of various elements, is melted, heated to a given temperature, and then allowed to freeze under specified conditions. What will be the "structure" of the resulting metal? The term structure includes: 1—crystal size, shape, and orientations, 2—distribution of chemical elements, and 3-—shape, including cracks, cavities, pores, etc. The Solid-Liquid Interface We will first consider what takes place if a single crystal of a metal in the form of a rod is heated, not uniformly, but so that one end is hotter than the other. If this heating process is continued long enough, the hotter end will eventually melt; we will suppose that the rod is in a containing vessel so that the molten metal does not run away, Fig. 1. When some of the metal has melted, we have some solid, some liquid, and an interface or surface of contact between them. If the source of heat is now removed, the interface will move so that some of the liquid freezes, and if the supply of heat is suitably adjusted the interface will remain at rest. This very simple arrangement allows us to study the basic processes of melting and freezing, and if we fully understand this simple case, we may be able to account for what takes place under practical conditions where the heat does not all flow in the same direction, and where the heat flow is determined not by a controllable source of heat but by the heat capacity and temperature of metal and mold, and by the heat loss from the mold surface. The solid-liquid interface is evidently the region of the greatest interest to us; on one side of it there is crystalline solid, and on the other, liquid. In the solid, each atom has a well defined position, around which it vibrates as a result of thermal agitation. It only leaves this position in the relatively rare event of a "diffusion jump." The liquid is much less systematically organized. The atoms are about as far from their neighbors as in the solid, but the arrangement is much less systematic and is continuously changing. The solid and the liquid are represented diagrammatically in Fig. 2. The average energy of the atoms in the liquid is greater than in the solid by an amount that corresponds to the latent heat of fusion, i.e., the amount of heat that has to be supplied to convert unit mass of solid into liquid at the same temperature. The Two Processes As has recently been shown by Jackson and Chalmers,3 many of the features of the processes of freezing and melting can be understood if it is assumed that a continuous and rapid interchange of atoms between solid and liquid always takes place at a solid-liquid interface." It is necessary to con- sider two distinct processes, that of melting, in which atoms leave the surface of the solid and become part of the liquid, and the converse process,

Jan 1, 1955

By B. A. Monkman

"IntroductionONE OF :THE most effective methods by which the construction industry is combatting mounting building costs is by making increased use of lightweight materials, thus reducing the dead load to be carried •by structures. This applies to non-metallic materials as well as to metallic ones, and particular attention has been given to developing lightweight aggregates for use in concrete.The use of lightweight aggregates is not new and, in fact, dates back to the Roman Empire, when pumice was used in the walls and domes of the Roman buildings. More recently, and up to a decade or so ago, the demand for these aggregates was met from deposits of volcanic cinders, pumice, scoria, etc., and from the by-products of blast furnaces and coal burning boilers. However, these sources of supply are no longer sufficient to meet the demand, for transportation costs pretty well restrict the use of the natural lightweight aggregates to the western cordillera regions where the deposits of these materials occur, and the use of expanded slag aggregates to the areas neighbouring the plants where slags are produced. As for cinders, the supply has been greatly reduced by the conversion of industry to fuel oil, natural gas, and powdered coal, and the large stockpiles which existed previously have been pretty well exhausted.Industry's approach to the problem of a decreasing supply, in the face of an increasing demand, has been characteristically direct. The solution has been to construct plants whose sole .purpose is to produce economically an acceptable light-weight aggregate from materials close at hand."

Jan 1, 1955

By J. F. Barkley

The work covered in this report was done to meet the requests from many Government agencies for information on alleviating sludge difficulties in No. 6 (Bunker C) fuel-oil storage tanks. Accumulated sludge at times caused serious loss in tank capacities; pumps became overloaded or lost suction; strainers often required very frequent cleaning; fuel-oil heaters in some instances became fouled and inefficient; and gobs of sludge that passed the strainers interfered with good combustion. The requests also included questions regarding the usefulness in general of oil "additives" for preventing sludge and the relative merits of the many trade-named additives being marketed. Realizing that preventing such difficulties would result in substantial savings to the Government, an investigation was begun with the limited funds avail-able. Although various claims are made for No. 6 fuel-oil additives other than preventing sludge, only an investigation as regards the storage tank-sludge problem has been possible.

Jan 1, 1955

By Arthur Hockman, Howard W. Jaffe, Howard F. Carl

THE problem of establishing practical techniques for evaluating natural corundum ores arose from the desire to improve the existing purchase specifications for crystal corundum procured by the Federal Government for stockpiling. Such purchase specifications had been developed for a large number of products, including minerals and ores considered to be critical and strategic because of the country's dependence on foreign sources of supply. It will be apparent to anyone considering the subject of purchase specifications that the determination of whether or not a submittal meets the specifications is a prime consideration. Consequently satisfactory specifications for minerals should not only incorporate physical, chemical, and mineralogical requirements that are practical but should also establish the means by which both buyer and seller can be assured that materials meet stated requirements. The Munition Board's Material Purchase Specification for corundum, dated February 1954, covered two grades of crystal corundum intended primarily for abrasive use. It established limits of size and of composition: Grade A, at least 95 pct +3 mesh and 92 pct alumina (Al2O3); Grade B, at least 95 pct +7 mesh and 90 pct alumina. It also specified that "of each lot of material, not less than 95 percent shall have a hardness equal to or exceeding nine (9) on Moh's Scale." These specifications were unsatisfactory for several reasons. They did not allow the purchase of lower grades of corundum being used by industry. Neither did they specify exactly what a corundum ore actually was, except that it should contain so much alumina and have a certain scratch hardness. Nothing was said about the abrasive qualities of the material that was to be purchased primarily for abrasive use. During the period 1946 to 1948 supplies of the two grades defined in the then current specifications continued to decrease. Early in 1949 industry recommended that the finer sizes of corundum known as "crystal corundum concentrates," ¼-in. to 16-mesh material, be added to the stockpile specifications and that lower grades of crystal corundum also be included. In the spring of 1949 the National Bureau of Standards and the Bureau of Mines were asked by the Munitions Board to cooperate in developing more practical specifications for grading natural corundum ores. The National Bureau of Standards indicated that it would investigate physical test methods for determining abrasive characteristics of corundum, and the Eastern Experiment Station of the Bureau of Mines at College Park, Md., stated that it would consider the mineralogical aspects of the problem. Members of these two agencies, in consultation with representatives of the Office of Materials Resources of the Munitions Board and of the Federal Supply Service of the General Services Administration, and with the cooperation of industrial suppliers and consumers of abrasive corundum, developed, in a fairly short time, more practical specifications for six grades of corundum ores. The new specifications, issued January 1951, were for corundum, natural crystals, as by this time high-purity synthetic corundum was available and widely used. Nevertheless, for certain specific applications the natural product was preferred over the synthetic material. It has been extensively used in forming snagging wheels. It breaks into more or less cubical particles, whereas artificial corundum fractures into splintery shapes. These produce irregular cuts in glass, while the more symmetrical shape produces a more uniform ground surface. For this reason natural corundum has been preferred for certain types of lens grinding. Pure corundum is clear, colorless alpha alumina (A12O3), but it is rarely found in nature in this form. The most important gem varieties include the blue and yellow sapphires and the ruby. Minute impurities of titanic oxide impart a blue color,

Jan 1, 1955

The first metal-mine accident-prevention course was prepared and published in 1942-45 as a series of seven miners' circulars (Nos. 51-57). The scope of the course has been broadened, revised, and brought up to date, and it is being published as a similar series of seven miners' circulars (Nos. 51-57, revised) on accident prevention in metal and nonmetallic mines. These circulars are: Accident Statistics (Miners' Circular 51), dealing with general statistics on accidents and injuries at metal and nonmetallic mines, including causes, costs, and the uses of investigations and reports of all accidents.

Jan 1, 1955

By S. T. Reese

STATISTICS of injuries in the quarrying and related industries in the United States first became available when the Bureau of Mines collected reports from the operating companies for the calendar year 1911. Since then reports have been collected annually. The present bulletin, covering the calendar year 1952, is the 33d publication containing statistical data on injuries at quarries and related plants, and it is the first to be published since 1944. The last publication was Bulletin 458, Quarry Accidents in the United States during the Calendar Year 1942. The unpublished statistics for 1942-51 may be found in the Appendix of this bulletin. The Bureau of Mines is authorized to collect data on injuries at quarries, but there is no Federal law that compels operators to supply such data, and the reports received from operators are voluntary responses to the Bureau's requests for information. Although the figures presented herein may not be complete for the entire industry, every effort has been exerted to make them so, and the figures given are believed to be thoroughly representative of the hazards to which quarry workers are exposed. Moreover, the figures are com¬parable as between States -which is significant in view of the lack of uniformity among the States as regards classes of plants covered by State laws, classes of injuries covered by State reports, and other factors that tend to make it impracticable or impossible to compare the injury experience of one State with that of another or to comprehend the relative importance of the various causes of injuries in the industry as a whole.

Jan 1, 1955

By Seth T. Reese

THE INJURY DATA and experience at coal mines in the United States for 1951 are presented in this bulletin under the following general heads: (A) General injury experience: Tables 1 to 18: Contain current data on number of fatalities and nonfatal injuries, frequency and severity rates, average severity, major and detailed injury agencies, and distribution of injuries by part of body and days of disability. (B) Selected injury data: Tables 19 to 43: Contain current data on various selected factors of operating and physical conditions that contributed to the occurrence of injuries at bituminous-coal, lignite, and anthracite mines. These factors include extent of hand and machine loading, size of mine by employment and production groups, thickness of bed or vein, duration and number of work shifts, rating of mine as gassy or nongassy, types of cap lamps, explosives, and combination of factors that influence mine safety. (C) Injury experience by States: Tables 44 to 50: Contain current data on number of fatalities and nonfatal injuries, frequency and severity rates, average severity, major causes and principal agencies, injury records of all coal-producing States, and the relative standing by States according to injury-frequency rates. (D) Major disasters: Table 51: Lists the coal-mine disasters that occurred during 1951, giving location, source, and cause. A major disaster in coal mining is defined as a single accident in which or as a result of which five or more men lost their lives. (E) Historical coal-mine injury experience: Tables 52 to 86: Contain data on injuries, injury-frequency rates, employment, and production at bituminous-coal, lignite, and anthracite mines from the earliest records through 1951.

Jan 1, 1955

By Alfred Traverse

The Brandon lignite is a small deposit of very low rank coal near the village of Forestdale in the town of Brandon, Vt. It occurs in association with other sediments, principally sands and silts. This lignitic coal has attracted considerable scientific interest since the middle of the 19th century because of the abundance of fossils in the sediment and the rarity of lignite in New England. A cooperative investigation has been developed by E. S. Barghoorn, W. Spackman, and the author in which different phases of the problem have been worked on in a coordinated research program. This paper presents results of an investigation of the very abundant fossil pollen and spores and some other microfossils of the deposit. The studies on which this manuscript is based were made in large part at Harvard University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph. D. degree.

Jan 1, 1955

By Oliver Bowles

ASBESTOS is a name applied to a group of naturally fibrous minerals. As indicated in a later section devoted to a detailed discussion of the early history of asbestos, the tern may be defined as a. fibrous form of serpentine or amphibole. It does not include fibrous forms of other minerals, such as wollastonite, nemalite (fibrous brucite), or the fibrous forms of calcite or gypsum. A material that has the characteristics of silk or cotton and at the same time will not burn is unique. Because it combines these qualities with other advantageous properties, asbestos has specialized uses for which no substitutes are yet available. Asbestos furnishes a major raw material for a great variety of essential products and their manufacture constitutes a vast industry. The United States leads all countries in the manufacture of asbestos products. The value of such commodities manufactured in 1952 exceeded $332 million. They are not only of vast importance to budding construction and industry but axe absolutely, essential to certain important fields of use, for example, steam packings and friction materials, such as brake-band linings on automobiles.

Jan 1, 1955

By C. T. Baroch

The purpose of this report is to describe the design features and techniques used in operating a plant capable of producing about 1,500 pounds of titanium metal per day. The process used was based on the reduction of titanium tetrachloride with magnesium, a modification of what is generally known and spoken of as the Kroll process. Sponge metal crushed to melter's specifications was the end product of the operation as conducted. The report is divided into sections covering general plant layout and the major unit operations. These, in turn, are each divided into discussions of the equipment, operating procedures, and typical results. Descriptions are given in more detail than is generally expected of a technical report. During 1953 and 1954 over 130 engineers and businessmen, officially representing some 80 industrial, chemical, end engineering firms, visited the operating plant, and their questions, which indicated a serious interest in details, have served as a guide for the material contained in this report.

Jan 1, 1955

By C. Arthur Carlson

"It now becomes my privilege and duty to call to order this fifty-first meeting of the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute. "I bid you a hearty welcome and I know by your attendance at these meetings you will gain a great deal of valuable information, as well as have a wonderful time. "We have been very ably represented by Mr. John H. Emrick as General Chairman, assisted by our good friend Mr. Fred W. Whiteside, our secretary and treasurer. I know they have worked very hard in selecting the various committees, who in turn - by the looks of our program have gone all out to prepare material that should be of great interest to us. I trust we will be attentive to the subjects presented and freely enter into the discussions, also relating our problems and experiences. I am sure this will prove both profitable and beneficial to all present. "The main purpose of these conventions is to become acquainted with each other, renew old acquaintances, talk over our problems, and have a little fun and relaxation from our every day routine. "Let us not forget the manufacturers, the distributors, the operators, or the press because it is through their splendid support that this organization is successful. "Since our last meeting we have gained many new members, whom we especially welcome. We are sorry to have lost a few. I am mindful, at this time, of two very good members from my home state who have passed away, Walter Wetzel, a former president of this institute, and Lee Alger, at the time of his death, Vice-President from Utah. We also lost very recently our assistant Secretary-Treasurer, Everret Davis. These men contributed a great deal to the institute and the coal industry in general. I am sure they are greatly missed by all who knew them."

Jan 1, 1955

By M. E. Nicholson

IN order to understand how alloying elements influence hardenability through their effect on the rate of pearlite nucleation, it is advantageous to use a model to describe the mechanism of pearlite nucleation. The model which currently is most widely accepted has been described, among others, by Mehl et a1.1-3 and by Hultgren.4 Pearlite nucleation involves both the nucleation of ferrite and cementite.4,5 Cementite nucleates first, followed rapidly by the formation of ferrite at the cementite-austenite interface. The conclusion that cementite is the first phase to form during the process of pearlite nucleation is based, in part, on the observation that proeutectoid cementite is continuous with pearlitic cementite and that the orientation relationship between proeutectoid ferrite and austenite is not the same as that between pearlitic: ferrite and austenite.6,7 Recently, Smith" has suggested that the dissimilarity in orientation relations, instead of indicating the pearlite nucleation sequence, may be evidence that pearlite is nucleated in a grain adjacent to the one in which it is growing. Also, Modin9 as shown that ferrite in pearlite may be continuous with proeutectoid ferrite, and he has also shown that proeutectoid cementite is not always continuous with pearlitic cementite. Thus, it appears that the conclusion that cementite always initiates the pearlite nucleation process is open to serious question. The author believes that important evidence on the question of how pearlite is nucleated exists in the rates of pearlite nucleation of different steels. The following is a review and analysis of this evidence. If the nucleation of pearlite is considered as requiring the nucleation of both cementite and ferrite, then the time to nucleate pearlite consists of the time to nucleate the first phase to form, plus the time to nucleate the second phase at the advancing interface of the first. In the absence of a visible proeutectoid constituent, the second phase must be nucleated very soon after the first. If cementite is the first phase to form, the time to nucleate pearlite will be approximately equal to the time to nucleate cementite. Since the nucleation rate of a phase precipitating from solid solution increases with the degree of supersaturation, it would be expected that the rate of pearlite nucleation should increase with increasing carbon content. Digges10 has shown that the reverse is true. He determined the quenching velocity necessary to suppress pearlite formation in plain carbon steels as a function of carbon content. His results showed that pearlite formation could be suppressed with lower quenching velocities as the carbon content of the steel increased, at least up to 1.25 pct C, the highest carbon content he studied. Thus, it would appear that in plain carbon steels, in which pearlite is formed at the nose of the C-curve, the hypothesis that cementite nucleates first does not predict the observed change in nucleation rate. The validity of the current model of pearlite nucleation may be tested also by determining whether or not it predicts the relative influence of alloying elements on the nucleation of ferrite and pearlite. This can be done best by a consideration of the changes in a TTT diagram produced by a change in alloy content. Hultgren4 suggests that the general shape of a TTT diagram, as well as what constituents will form from austenite, can be predicted from the relative nucleation rates of ferrite and cementite. This is illustrated in the schematic diagram for a hypoeutectoid low alloy or plain carbon steel shown in Fig. 1. The C-curves for ferrite nucleation and for cementite nucleation are represented by AA' and CC', respectively, and the start of ferrite formation and pearlite formation are represented by AX and BC respectively. Adopting the current theory, Hultgren suggests that between X and C pearlite forms directly from austenite, since cementite nucleates more rapidly than ferrite in this temperature range. Conversely, at temperatures above Tx, ferrite is the first to nucleate and proeutectoid ferrite is formed. As proeutectoid ferrite grows, austenite becomes enriched in carbon, so that the cementite nucleation rate is increased. As a result, pearlite nucleation above temperature Tx is accelerated, beginning along BX and not along C'X. Temperature T, represents the temperature at which the nucleation rate of ferrite equals that of cementite. By extending this type of reasoning, using the principle that the nucleation rates of ferrite and cementite increase with increasing supersaturation of austenite with respect to these phases, it should be possible to predict the influence of carbon content on the shape of the isothermal transformation diagram. For a slightly higher carbon content than that of Fig. 1, the curve A A' representing the beginning of ferrite formation should be moved to the right, whereas the curve CC' representing the beginning of cementite formation should be moved to the left. For hypoeutectoid plain carbon and low alloy steels, this prediction does not agree with existing data. Instead, as the carbon content is increased, the pearlite curve moves to the right along with the ferrite curve and always appears to join it tangen-tially. This behavior is demonstrated by the TTT-curves of a series of manganese steels" shown in Fig. 2. In this figure, TTT-curves for four alloys containing 0.20, 0.40, 0.60, and 1.20 pct C are superimposed. The curves are identified in the figure legend. The letters F, P, and C are used to indicate the start of ferrite, pearlite, and cementite formation, respectively. In these steels, it appears that the nucleation of ferrite and of pearlite are related processes. As a result of the foregoing evidence, it is proposed that the formation of pearlite be considered as follows: Either ferrite or cementite may nucleate from austenite, then grow until the remaining phase is nucleated at the interface between the growing phase and austenite. (The growth of the first phase to form is assumed to be accompanied by a composition change in the adjoining austenite.) According to this model there are two modes of nucleating pearlite: 1—where cementite initiates the succession

Jan 1, 1955

By B. K. Shibler, I. S. Solet, H. W. St. Clair

"This study was undertaken to provide a more adequate knowledge of the chemistry of the sulfide volatilization process for recovery of tin from low-grade Bolivian ores. The investigation was partly supported by the Department of State under its program for scientific cooperation with South American republics.The results of this investigation demonstrate the conditions under which cassiterite (Sn02) may be converted to stannous sulfide by reaction with pyrite or sulfur vapor. Quantitative data are given on the rate of sulfidization and on the vapor pressure of stannous sulfide.INTRODUCTIONAlthough the United States is the world's largest consumer of tin, virtually no tin ores occur within our national borders. Most of the world's tin supply comes from alluvial deposits in the Far East and in Africa, The major sources of tin ores are Malaya, Indochina, Bolivia, Belgian Congo, Nigeria, Thailand, Burma, China, and the United Kingdom. Bolivia is the only important source of tin in the western hemisphere. It was the chief source of tin f or the United States during World War II. The Government-owned tin smelter at Texas City, Tex., was built primarily for smelting Bolivian ores and depends largely on Bolivian ores for its operation. Bolivia is the only major tin-producing country in which the tin ores occur as vein or lode deposits requiring underground mining. Most of the tin from the Far East and Africa is mined by dredges from alluvial or placer depos its. It is recovered as a high-grade concentrate of cassiterite relatively free from impurities. The tin minerals in the lode deposits are more intimately associated with other minerals and more difficult to separate into a clean concentrate. Furthermore, a large part of the tin in the original ore is lost during concentration. The ores as mined contain only a few percent of tin, so they must be milled to separate the gangue minerals and produce a concentrate containing 30 to 40 percent tin before they are shipped to the smelter. The losses of tin that occur during milling vary from 18 to 65 percent. The average recovery of tin from Bolivian ores is probably 50 to 60 percent."

Dec 1, 1954

By BUREAU OF MINES

This report is submitted in accordance with the provisions of the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act of April 5, 1944 (30 U.S C. 321-325, as amended), which require that: "The Secretary of the Interior shall render to Congress on or before the first day of January of each year a report on all operations under this Act." Owing to the broad scope of the content and the diversity of interests represented, the Annual Report for 1953 has been divided into two separate publications. Each has been published by the Bureau of Mines as a Report of Investigations, and the respective titles follow: R. I. 5043, Part I - 011 From Coal. R. I. 5044, Part II 011 From 011 Shale. - Identical in each report, the introduction summarizes research progress made in 1953 under the entire Synthetic Liquid Fuels program. A free copy of each of these publications may be obtained by a written request to the Bureau of Mines, Publications Distribution Section, 4800 Forbes Street, Pittsburgh 13, Pa. The R. I. number and title of the publication desired should be indicated.

Apr 1, 1954

By BUREAU OF MINES

This report is submitted in accordance with the provisions of the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act of April 5, 1944 (30 U.S.C. 321-325, as amended), which require that: "The Secretary of the Interior shall render to Congress on or before the first day of January of each year a report on all operations under this Act." Owing to the broad scope of the content and the diversity of interests represented, the Annual Report for 1953 has been divided into two separate publications. Each has been published by the Bureau of Mines as a Report of Investigations, and the respective titles follow: R. I. 5043, Part I - Oil From Coal. R. I. 5044, Part II - Oil From Oil Shale. Identical in each report, the introduction summarizes research progress made in 1953 under the entire Synthetic Liquid Fuels program. A free copy of each of these publications may be obtained by a written request to the Bureau of Mines, Publications Distribution Section, 4800 Forbes Street, Pittsburgh 13, Pa. The R. I. number and title of the publication desired should be indicated.

Apr 1, 1954

By Edward Thomas

ROCK bolting, third great change in postwar underground mining, is inseparably tied to the other two changes: better drilling and mechanized mining. Mechanized mining provided the impetus, when conventional supports restricted maneuver-ability of equipment-while carbide-tipped bits lent the means of drilling required holes cheaply. With the need and the tools at hand development snow- balled. In just six years, from January 1948 to January 1954, some 800 mines adopted bolting for systematic support, and over 100 of these mines now use rock bolts exclusively. Simultaneously, foreign mines have adopted the idea, but to a lesser extent. What held back this major change? The concept of fastening loose material to unbroken and apparently solid material is probably as old as mining itself, and sporadic use has been reported from virtually every mining region in the world. But falls of rock have always been the greatest source of both fatal and nonfatal accidents in underground mining and miners have understandable reluctance to work under roof or back material if they even suspect that it might be hanging like a "sword of Damocles" -supported only by a thin bolt.

Jan 11, 1954