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By Sara J. Davenport

With the increased demand for mercury incident to preparations for national defense and the reduction in imports from some of the usual sources owing to war conditions, many small mines in the United States Pure now being worked that ordinarily would be unprofitable. This is indicated by the following table on mercury produced in the Unite States in 1939-40 (1)4/

Jan 1, 1941

By K. L. Paciorek

The primary objective of this final phase of Contract No. H0133004 was to provide a description of all experimental assemblies and procedures used throughout this project in such a detail as to permit duplication of the tests in any other laboratory. A further objective was to summarize and evaluate all results generated throughout the duration of this program and to tabulate all the materials and data in such a manner as to allow this report to be used as a reference index for specific compositions or groups of compositions regarding potential hazards arising from their use .in underground coal mining operations. The report also contains an updated survey of the literature on thermal oxidative degradation of compositions investigated under this contract.

Jan 1, 1978

By Thomas Novak, Sampurna Arya, Joseph Sottile

Dust generation and its dispersion in a longwall mine pose significant health and safety issues. The concern is prominent at both the working face, where coal excavation exposes workers to high dust concentrations, and also in the return, where float dust accumulates. To address this issue, researchers at theUniversity of Kentucky designed and fabricated a flooded-bed dust scrubber integrated into a full-scale physical model of a longwall shearer. This mock-up was installed in the longwall test gallery at the Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (PRL) of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). A full-factorial experiment was designed to measure the effectiveness of the scrubber on dust capture. Test results indicated dust reduction of up to 57% in the return airways. This paper presents the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model and its validation by comparing the simulation results against the experimental results. The CFD simulations show good agreement with experimental results with differences between + 6.9 and − 9.7%. The validated CFD model was used further to predict the scrubber performance under additional operating conditions, resulting in a dust reduction of up to 66.5%. With this level of success, the scrubber concept can be a game changer for the mining industry, and it can be utilized to improve health and safety in longwall mines.

May 26, 2020

By C E. Johnson, S Hosein

Previous researchers have put forward two different theories as to the origin of air overpressure from quarry blasting. In 1980, Siskind et al postulated that the initial face movement gave rise to the displacement of air and that this resulted in the air overpressure pulse. However in 1990 McKenzie et al carried out research that indicated that the air overpressure pulse came into being as a consequence of the shock wave created by the detention of the explosive charge in a blast hole. In an attempt to evaluate these hypotheses, an investigation was undertaken over a 4-year period with the aim of determining the precise origin of air overpressure. The research was carried out at a chalk quarry in the North of England.

Jan 1, 2017

By R. E. Cook

"Mineral deposits require substantial amounts of energy to transport and be processed into usable form and, as such, present a real processing challenge in that the deposits are never homogeneous and orebody compositional characteristics are all over the map. Extracting the desired mineral(s) from the deposit at sufficient profit margin, despite severe fluctuations in market price, requires process automation architecture capable of supporting an integrated enterprise solution. Such an architecture will encompasses the activities of individuals, process units, process areas, plant level activities, mine management and business planning, and accounting systems. Key to the automation process is the aspect of value generation. This article brings together the various requirements for the automation of a mining enterprise and presents the different aspects of how to obtain value across the entire mining operation.Minerals’ processing sites are historically long lived, with 20-year life-of-mine not uncommon and 75 years not unheard of. Considering that hardware technology advancements are introduced every six months, or less, it is prudent to select process automation systems that adhere to “open” industrial standards versus proprietary based systems. In the minerals processing industry, the key to survival is driving the cost of production per unit volume to the lowest possible level and provide enough profit to sustain operations. Control system architecture and business information technology are rapidly becoming important tools in the quest for productivity. Getting key dynamic business performance information at the right time to the right person or process unit is crucial to successfully achieving corporate goals. The process automation architecture selected must, therefore, be able to integrate to the various networking enterprises and business systems.The mining industry is generally known as an extractive industry that is physically oriented with respect to operations and the activities in which workers engage. Large numbers of people performing manual tasks in difficult surroundings, produce variable outputs. But times are changing – and so are industry best practices. While the nature of work still consists of activities such as ore extraction, ore movement, ore concentration, refinement and logistics, automation innovations are starting to change the nature of many of the production steps. The industry has transitioned from requiring more physical activities by workers to more information management, automated control and collaboration within the operation. Humans are good at situational intervention and nonlinear reasoning and do best when empowered with an overall production perspective. Machines and automation are good at repetitive functions, steady state operation, and managing transitions. Thus, a combination of advanced technology solutions, reliable and useful information and full human contributions are necessary to mining operations for value generation."

Jan 1, 2015

By L. W. Kelly

The purpose of this paper is to indicate some of the benefits that have been derived in the Zeigler No. 3 mine by using roof bolts under extremely adverse roof conditions J with the thought that much better results could be obtained in other mines with more normal roof conditions by applying some of the practices that were developed in this mine. Some of the benefits that have been obtained in this mine, which will be shown in this paper, are: 1. Increased tonnage per man-shift at the face when roof bolts are used, as compared to the tonnage under similar conditions when conventional timbering methods were used. 2. Increased efficiency of roof bolting by giving the foremen a definite plan to follow. 3. Reduction in delays caused by failures of the trailing cables of loading, mining, and drilling machines. 4. Reduction in the number of accidents after roof bolting was adopted. Inasmuch as the success that followed roof bolting in this mine was obtained under one of the most treacherous roofs in the Middle West, it is reasonable to suppose that correspondingly better results could be obtained under more favorable roof conditions by using the same procedure.

Jan 1, 1952

By R. Lusignea

This report describes the development of a device for the nondestructive testing of resin grouted roof bolts by means of mechanical frequency response. Various alternative methods were evaluated and the mechanical frequency response method was selected. An interactive program of design, testing, and development culminating in the current prototype instrument demonstrated the capabilities of the method and suggested potential applications of the instrument. The resin bolt testing device utilizes a swept frequency dynamic compliance measurement in the 1 to 2 kHz range which is interpreted by an electronic signal processor to give a "GO" or "NO GO? readout. Field tests have shown that the device can reliably determine the bond quality of the front half of the bolt (nearest the roof surface). Tests were carried out on both experimentally installed bolts and typical mine bolts installed by a conventional bolting machine. The development program has led to recommendations for improvement of the prototype and future development work.

Jan 1, 1979

By M. Yamine, R. J. Ring, D. J. Waters

"An experimental program has been carried out by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission to compare the effectiveness of Caro's acid as an alternative oxidant to pyrolusite in the leaching of uranium ores from the Alligator Rivers region of northern Australia. Batch leaching tests on Ranger, Nabarlek, Koongarra and Jabiluka ores showed that uranium extraction was unaffected by choice of oxidant, but that Caro's acid reduced acid requirements by 15 - 25%. Lime requirements for neutralization of tailings liquors were reduced by 20 - 30%.The batch studies were extended to a four-stage continuous leaching circuit with a capacity of 400 gore h-I. Comparative leaching tests confirmed the reagent savings obtained in the batch tests. Following these encouraging laboratory results, lnterox Chemicals Pty Ltd carried out plant trials using Caro's acid. Reagent savings in the mill were similar to, or better than, those obtained in laboratory test work. The trials also established that Caro's acid has a number of operational advantages over pyrolusite.IntroductionUranium is most commonly extracted from its ores by leaching in sulphuric acid. Simple hexavalent uranium oxides and compounds are readily soluble but uranium in the tetravalent form is insoluble and must be oxidized for dissolution to occur. The most commonly used oxidants have been sodium chlorate and manganese dioxide. They act indirectly by maintaining iron as the ferric ion which oxidizes uranium by a surface electro- chemical reaction. An Fe3+ concentration of about 1 - 2 g L-I is usually considered adequate for the effective dissolution of uraninite(1)."

Jan 1, 1984

By N. J. Duncan

"Coal mining, whether surface or underground, has hazards that make it unique in the field of industrial safety and health. The often soft, faulted and folded sedimentary strata make wall or roof movement a risk to the safe and economic removal of the coal, while the extraction and handling of coal may create an explosion hazard even in surface operations, In Canada, these problems are compounded by the situation of the coal fields which range from deep undersea deposits in Nova Scotia to steeply pitching thick coal seams high in the Rocky Mountains. Climate too can create its own problems, particularly the effect of metals of minus 40°C temperatures, as crumpled dragline booms at prairie strip mines witness. Because of the difficult and sometimes hazardous conditions, Canada's underground colliery managers, in common with those of other Commonwealth coal-producing countries, must have a government ""certificate of competency"" before being appointed as mine managers. Certification of assistant managers (""under-managers"") and foremen (""fire-bosses"") is also a legal requirement for all of Canada's underground collieries, while the province of Alberta requires certification of surface management personnel. Electricians and mechanics who install and maintain the specially designed equipment underground and in hazardous areas of surface mines and processing plants, and mine surveyors who ensure accuracy of the location of underground workings, must also hold government certificates of competency. The requisites for all certification include a minimum work experience and knowledge of coal mining technology and mine safety and health legislation. Despite recognition of the hazards and increasing knowledge of methods of preventing explosions of flammable gas and coal dust in Canada's underground mines, there have been several disastrous explosions such as those at Springhill Colliery in Nova Scotia in 1891 with the loss of 125 lives, at Hillcrest Colliery in Alberta in 1914 with 189 dead, and more recently · explosions and fires in No. 20 and No. 26 Collieries in Cape Breton. Preventing explosions has required developing optimal ventilation techniques, reducing ignition potential, suppressing ignition at source, draining flammable gas before it can enter the air courses, and preventing, or sealing off, autogenous heatings with their associated carbon monoxide or explosion dangers."

Jan 1, 1985

By C. L. Karr

Researchers at the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) have developed adaptive process control systems in which genetic algorithms (GA's) are used to augment fuzzy logic controllers (FLC's). GA's are search algorithms that rapidly locate near-optimum solutions to a wide spectrum of problems by loosely modeling the search procedures of natural genetics. FLC's are rule-based systems that efficiently manipulate a problem environment by modeling the "rule-of-thumb" strategy used in human decision-making. Together, GA's and FLC's include all of the capabilities necessary to produce powerful, efficient, and robust adaptive control systems. To perform efficiently, such control systems require a control element to manipulate the problem environment, an analysis element to recognize changes in the problem environment, and an adaptive element to adjust to the changes in the problem environment. The control system also employs a computer simulation of the problem environment. Details of an overall adaptive control system are discussed. A specific laboratory acid-base pH system is used to demonstrate the ideas presented; all results are from the physical laboratory system and not from a computer simulation.

Jan 1, 2010

By Richard Wells

Peabody Energy is the largest pure-play publicly traded coal company in the world. We have been in business 129 years and like most of the coal mining companies in the United States, since 1969 the majority of our safety improvement efforts had been driven by compliance with the various versions of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act and the supporting federal regulations. In 2004 Peabody Energy management came to the understanding that in order to achieve our goal of zero incidents, that focus must change. This paper will describe the elements of the journey we began at that point to make the transition to a behavior and systems-based approach to safety management and our efforts to win the minds and hearts of our employees. This journey is undertaken with the goal of making safety truly a way of life for all Peabody Energy employees.

Aug 1, 2013

By William O. Vanderburg

This paper describing the methods and costs of milling scheelite ore at the Silver Dike concentrator of the Nevada-Massachusetts Co., Inc., is one of a series being prepared by the Bureau of Mines. In the Silver Dike mill tungsten ore which contains about 1 per cent of scheelite is treated at the maximum rate of 45 tens per 24 hours by tabling followed by magnetic separators to clean the table concentrates. Unusually high-grade concentrates are produced which average between 70 and 75 per cent of W03.

Jan 1, 1932

By H. Walqui

This paper describes operating gains resulting from standardizing operating and maintenance practices to improve the performance of the pebble crushing circuit at he Empire Concentrator. Past efforts have led to improved operating time but no additional throughput gains. New Operating standards and checklists were developed and introduced. The content and frequency of the review process indicators was then changed to take advantage of the new practices resulting in an increased feed rate and availability through the pebble crushing circuit.

Feb 27, 2013

By Jonathan K. Hrica, Brianna M. Eiter

The ability to identify hazards during a workplace examination is a critical skill for mineworkers to have in order to maintain a safe workplace. While research suggests that being able to successfully recognize hazards requires a complex set of competencies, it is unclear which competencies are most critical to adequately perform a workplace examination. This paper presents a hazard recognition competencies framework as an explanation of the competencies that affect mineworker hazard recognition. To better understand how the industry is selecting and preparing workplace examiners, researchers from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) interviewed nine health and safety (H&S) professionals at surface stone, sand and gravel mine sites throughout the United States. These interviews verified that the competencies included in the hazard recognition competencies framework agree with perceptions of the interviewed H&S professionals, who also provided validity for the critical role these competencies play. Finally, the results of this study are presented within the context of current NIOSH research findings related to hazard recognition.

By R. D. Leitch, W. P. Yant, A. C. Fieldner, R. R. Sayers, S. J. Pearce

"The detection of leakage is a recognized problem in the safe and economic distribution and use of natural gas. Natural gas is practically odorless and therefore lacks he property of indicating significant leakage by the sense of smell, the means most widely used by gas employees and consumers for detecting leaks of the more odorous types of fuel eases. In view of the recognized value of the odor of gas for indicating leakage at the time of occurrence the Bureau of Mines has studied' the possibility of adding small amounts highly odorous substances to types of fuel gas (such as blue water gas and natural gas) that lack warning properties. These studies revealed that the mercaptans were promising substances to accomplish this purpose, not only for odorizing fuel gases but for other purposes° where it was desired to give warning through the sense of smell.Since completing the studies mentioned, the Bureau of Mines jointly with the American Gas Association has conducted further investigations dealing with the use of warning agents for fuel gases. The results of this work will be published later.The Bureau of Mines had been desirous of observing the practical use of ethyl mercaptan for detecting leakage of natural gas, particularly to determine whether the odor would permeate the ground and give indication of lea's in underground pipes. Opportunity for making these observations was recently given by E. A. Munyan, manager, gas department, Union Gas t Electric Co., who requested the bureau's cooperation in making leakage surveys of the company's distributing systems at Franklin and Middletown, Ohio."

Jun 1, 1930

By Stefano Scubla

DANIELI Q-MELT is the latest evolution of EAF concept to automatically control each stage of the melting process, from the electric power planning to the combustion optimization as well as the slag and steel metallurgy management for every operation required in the EAF cycle. The core of the automation system is the Melt-Model that automatically identifies deviations of the process control variables and corrects them to avoid losses or wasting of available energy sources. The real-time online off-gas analysis, via the in-situ laser system, promotes the process tracking and permits further optimization by a viable closed-loop control acting on fuel and oxygen postcombustion. A suite of supplementary stand-alone Technological Packages integrates the Q-MELT to further maximize the productive time and the utilization factor, supporting the operators to limit downtimes, avoiding misoperations and/or mistakes.

Aug 16, 2017

By Donald B. Gillies

TO me a graduating class of engineers constitutes one ' of the finest inspirations I can imagine. You have finished your four- year scholastic career and are starting out in competition with thou- sands of other young men from other universities to make your mark. Be- cause of your training you men are such an essential part of our present- day civilization that a great weight of responsibility rests on your shoulders, especially at this time, for this is an engineering era. Today, it is the engineer who dreams the dreams and makes our civilization better. It's the engineer who carries those dreams into realization and fulfillment. No matter where we go in business and industry, we find- engineers in key positions, charged with great responsibilities.

Jan 1, 1939

By Charles F. Jackson

Waste filling has been employed for many years for supporting the walls of stopes and preventing failure and subsidence of the surrounding and overlying rock formations, and its effectiveness for this purpose has long been recognized. It is used for permanent support in ground where timbering (including square-setting) is inadequate for more than temporarily supporting the walls of the excavations. It should be rioted, however, that effective as a good, solid fill may be in resisting heavy side pressure and direct weight, its usefulness for supporting large areas of back and preventing breaking and movement of the overlying rocks is limited. Even the strongest and most uniform rocks will break if the unsupported span becomes too great; and since filling cannot be packed tightly against a horizontal back there is always a possibility of the back breaking and consequent subsidence if the maximum self-supporting span is exceeded. Planes of separation, such as bedding and fault planes, slips, and joints, are common in all rock masses; these may occur above the stoping area where their presence cannot be ascertained by observation. If too much reliance is placed upon filling for the support of a large horizontal area of back (as contrasted to support of vertical or steeply inclined walls) large masses of rock may break along a. plane of weakness, compress the fill, and leave an open space into which caving of the overlying rocks may continue until the space is filled. In this paper the term "waste filling" includes any filling material other than ore - waste mine rock, rock from surface quarries or opencuts, sand and gravel, mill sands, or slags from smelting operations.

Jan 1, 1935

By E. P. Youngman

Titanium ranks as one of the more abundant elements, is widely distributed, and occurs in concentrated form in numerous deposits. This substance was discoveres 140 years ago; but despite the efforts of metallurgists and chemists to find a place for it in industry, only within the last 10 or 15 years has the increased use of titanium pigments provided any extensive outlet for titanium ores. Even to-day titanium is confined to a few highly specialized industrial applications. The metal itself is now quoted regularly in trade journale, but scarcely yet can it be said that the production or use of the metal. has progressed very far beyond the laboratory stage. Ferroalloys containing the element were largely used for a time, especially in connection with the manufacture of Bessemer steel rails; but as American rail- ways adopted open-hearth rails in preference to Bessemer rails, the demand for the alloys in the rail manufacture gradually dwindled into insignificance. New outlets for ferrotitanium have been found in the steel industry; and the production of titanium alloys, both in the United States and in Europe, has increased in recent years. By far the largest use of titanium at the present time, however, is in pigments. The manufacture of titanium white began in Norway, but at present the United States is the leading producer. One of the two companies now operating in the United States is also the leading factor in European production. Although titanium occurs, in many minerals, the principal commercial sources are rutile (the natural oxide, Ti02) and ilmenite (iron-titanium oxide, FeO. TiO2). The latter is a coal-black mineral, but it is the one used in the manufacture of the titanium white of commerce, as well as in the manufacture of ferroalloys and arc-lamp electrodes. Rutile, the natural oxide, is not pure white and, being less common in nature, costs more; it is, therefore, reserved for use in the manufacture of titanium chemicals employed in relatively small amounts in dye works and bleacheries and for sundry minor purposes. This paper summarizes the titanium industry, with special reference to its economic aspects. It is offered as a survey of current trade literature and as a digest of material in the files of the bureau and is presented in response to numerous inquiries from prospective producers as to ways and means of exploiting deposits. (At present, much of the ilmenite consumed in this country comes from overseas, principally from British India..). A forthcoming circular, devoted to deposits of titanium-bearing ores, deals with foreign and domestic sources of supply.

Oct 1, 1930

By Roy H. Poston

The following paper is one of a series on mining methods and practices being published by the United States Bureau of Mines, and deals with the sinking of the Pim shaft (No. 7) of the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Works of the National Lead Co. in the southeast Missouri lead belt. The shaft was sunk in 1922 and 1923 on a tract several miles south of the company's main plant located at St. Francois, Mo., in St. Francois County. The author is indebted to W. H. Comins, local manager of the company, with whose permission this article has been written, for his helpful criticism; and to E. T. Campbell, geologist, and M. Cross, underground shop foreman; and to W. A. Cole, manager of the E. J. Longyear Development Co., who had general supervision of the work and supplied detailed performance and cost data.

Jan 1, 1932